The Ossuary
by Helen Pattskyn
Summary: AU. When John Hart discovers an ancient alien artefact in an American museum, who does he call? Torchwood. But when Jack shows up, he finds more than an old relic, he finds an old flame. The entire team learns how much each decision in life matters.
1. Chapter 1

**General Notes:** for anyone discovering my work for the first time, this story is part of a large, ongoing Alternate Universe series that involves multiple crossovers. It isn't strictly necessary to read everything that has come before this one as long as you're willing to take certain "facts" as truth. Please be forewarned that there is at least one male/male pairing (nothing weird, it's actually cannon.)

**Bones Notes**: This takes place in the current season, BUT certain facts have been altered to fit a different scenario at the end of Season 3, mostly in regards to Zack, Hodgins and Angela (also, I haven't seen every single episode of the last two seasons, so if I miss some important tidbit, I apologize in advance. I'm working on catching up on reruns.)

In a nutshell, Zack *didn't* become an assistant to a serial killer/cannibal, i.e. the Gormagon, at the end of Season 3, and Hodgins and Angela did eventually tie the knot. All three remain in the employ of the Jeffersonian. Further explanations will be given in later chapters.

There *have* been a sting of interns, however, since Zack is no longer an intern himself and it's only fair to let some other people have a chance to work with Dr Brennan. (So Sweets and Daisy did eventually meet and become an item.)

The first couple of chapters take place mostly in Cardiff, then the action moves to DC.

**Personal Note**: The rest of the inspiration for this piece was that wanted to see James Marsters (Captain John Hart) and David Boreanaz (Seeley Booth) together again, at least on "paper."

**Crossovers (so far)**: Torchwood / Doctor Who, Bones, NCIS, CSI Las Vegas, House, Blood Ties – but only specific characters/character mentions.

**Spoiler Warnings**: Nothing current. By now I think we've pretty much all seen Children of Earth and the last couple seasons of Bones and NCIS.

**Disclaimers:** If it's been on television, it's a good bet that I don't own it, I'm just borrowing it to play for a little while. The only (regular) original characters are Nerys Jones, Wendy Shutten and Dr Shane Bruster. (For the sake of visuals, I've "cast" Sarah-Jane Potts, Gina Torres and Andrew-Lee Potts in those roles, respectively.)

**Huge Thanks:** go to my co-conspirators in the AU! You're continually feeding my Muses! Huge thanks also go to those of you who continue to read my work, you are fantastic and I appreciate you all SO much!!

**

* * *

**

**The Ossuary**

_"You can do whatever you want, but remember,  
it is also you who has to face the consequences of what you have done."_

~Anonymous

* * *

Chapter One

**April 25, 2010**

"_More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse."_

Doug Larson

* * *

_Cardiff, Wales_

_._

Captain Jack Harkness, a man some two thousand years old (although he would loudly argue with anybody who said he looked a day over thirty five), glanced up from the report he was skimming when he heard familiar footsteps coming towards his open office door. A moment later the other man entered. He was tall and slim and incredibly handsome, especially wearing a perfectly pressed suit, complete with waistcoat (no suit was complete without one, Jack had decided a while back, at least not on a certain handsome Welshman). The shirt he wore with the suit was burgundy (a shade of dark red) and the tie burgundy, black and silver. He would have looked even more handsome if his face weren't set in such a grim and unpleasant expression.

Without a word, he closed the distance between them and set a cup of coffee down at the Captain's elbow, the handle turned precisely to seven o'clock. He cradled a second cup in his hands and perched himself on the edge of the older man's desk. For several long moments they stared at one another in uncharacteristically stony silence.

"Just say it," the Captain broke it first. Although he wasn't from America, he had a perfect Midwestern American accent.

First he took a sip of his coffee. "I don't like it."

"Your coffee?"

He glared.

"I know you don't like it, Ianto," he leant back in his chair, cup in hand. "What do you expect me to do?"

"How about ignoring the whole thing? That's what any sensible person would do."

"I can't just ignore it and hope it's nothing."

"You can ignore it. You just don't want to."

He signed, but didn't respond.

Ianto didn't say anything right away either. He knew the look on Jack's face. There was no changing his mind, the best he could do was accept the situation and hope that it didn't turn out to be an utter disaster…or worse. "Who are you sending?" he inquired in the most neutral tone he could muster. It wasn't very neutral.

"Bobby. Shane—I already called Martha and asked if I could borrow him for a week or two—and Ziva. I want to see how she handles something like this," he answered the unasked question in the other's eyes. "And I'm going," he added quietly, breaking eye contact before the words were fully out of his mouth. He waited… but there wasn't an explosion. What he got instead was an icy stare and the clenching of the other man's jaw.

However, "I see," was all his Welshman had to say on the subject.

"Ianto—"

"It's your call, Jack. You're the boss." He stood up and started to leave him to his paperwork.

"Ianto please…"

He turned on the older man; his gaze was still frosted over. "He says jump and you jump. Please tell me again how much good this has done for us in the past? Oh that's right," he answered his own question in an acerbic tone, "I got a gun shoved in my face and Gwen almost died! And when we found you, your spine had been snapped _completely in __**half**_ because he'd shoved you off a fifty story office building!" he seethed.

Deep down he knew he was being unfair. John had also been there, uninvited of course, when Jack was pregnant with their daughter. He didn't know what he would have done without John's help the night Jack collapsed, when Seren's umbilical cord tore loose from the uterine wall…But the image of his partner laying there, dead, the day John pushed him off that building over three years ago, his eyes open, glazed over, his back broken… he and Owen had had to haul Jack to the ground, straighten him out, wait… hope. Pray that he was really as immortal as he said he was.

"Why do _you_ have to go?" he wanted to know; he was aware of how jealous he sounded. He didn't care.

"In case you're right."

"You could just tell him to sod off, you know," he couldn't help sounding just a little bit hopeful. "If all you want to do is get out of Cardiff for a few days—"

"You know I can't do that. There is a chance, a slim chance, that he's telling the truth about what he found in D.C."

_Fat chance is more like it… _but despite his ire, Ianto allowed his boss…his husband… to gather him up into his arms. He allowed himself to be held. He wrapped his arms around the older man's waist. He'd have been a liar if he tried to deny how much enjoyed the intimacy; there had been a time when they never would have embraced like that at work, even in the privacy of Jack's office, not with everybody still in. He closed his eyes, took a breath. Let it out. Took in another, relishing his Captain's scent, those fifty first century pheromones. He snugged in a little closer, held on a little tighter. "I'd like to go with you," he said at last.

"Ianto—"

"I'm sorry," he shook his head. He knew it was out of the question—had known it before he even asked. Gwen had just had a baby, Abby was pregnant and on light duty. That put them two down as it was. Besides somebody had to stay home for their children.

"You know I wish I could take you, right?" Jack asked him, not sounding as if he was at all sure of the answer.

"I know how much you love me, Cariad. That's all that matters."

He swallowed. Sometimes it was so hard to believe…but then his Welshman smiled that smile of his and he knew that everything was all right—or at least that it would be. "I know you love me too," he said.

Ianto brushed his lips against the other's mouth, just a light kiss to reassure him. "When do you leave?" the venom had completely left his tone.

"First thing tomorrow morning. I already booked the flight."

"Afraid I might refuse to?" he managed to tease.

Jack shrugged. "It crossed my mind."

"I told you once before, nothing we do after hours will ever affect our working relationship. Not even something like this."

"You said that before you asked me to marry you. That—"

"That doesn't change a thing, Jack. I respect you. _Sir_."

His smile turned wicked; he leant in, savoured the kiss. "What d'you say we cut out early today?" he purred softly in the younger man's ear. "It's been a quiet…"

Ianto silenced him with another quick kiss. "Don't jinx it. Let's just run while we can."

He chuckled. "I like the way you think, Mr Jones-Harkness," he agreed. Tomorrow morning, he would be on a plane bound for Washington D.C. with Bobby, Shane and Ziva, but tonight it was just him and his Welshman…


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:**

Thank you for the warm reception this has gotten (I could use a little more warm, our furnace is out again, second time this week—and we got it fixed the first time! My husband is mighty unimpressed with the company we went to…)

I've been wanting to do the Bones crossover for ages, so I'm really glad that other people are wanting it, too. :) (And yes, this is the story of the box from Janus and Hestia. I needed to wait until I had a little more to flesh it out before actually writing it; Ziva and Shane seemed to fit the bill just right).

I have no idea where Hodgins really is supposed to live, I just Googled what seemed like an appropriate D.C. suburb. I'm open to suggestions/corrections if there is an offical location that I forgot being mentioned on the show.

Happy Solstice!

* * *

**Chapter Two**

**April 26, 2010**

"_I love you not only for what you are,  
but for what I am when I am with you.  
I love you not only for what you have made of yourself,  
but for what you are making of me.  
I love you for the part of me that you bring out."_

Roy Croft

* * *

_Cardiff, Wales_

.

Although she did not have to be in to work today, Israeli born, newly appointed Torchwood Liaison to UNIT, Ziva David found that her feet had brought here to the quay as a part of her morning jog, seemingly of their own accord. She knew that today would likely be her last day in Cardiff but she was unsure why that made her sad. She had known that she would only be here for a few weeks at most....but it had only been a few days since she had arrived. Apparently something had come up and Jack wished to test her in the field. She tried to tell herself that she was not nervous, but she was. She was being tested in Washington D.C. and the assignment was most likely of a diplomatic nature. She was not a diplomatic person.

She stopped by the water to look out over the bay. It was a gorgeous morning; that wasn't the sort of thing she used to notice. She used to simply go through her day without paying attention to the little things, the 'inconsequential' things—the things that she was realizing weren't inconsequential at all.

In three weeks working under Martha Jones Milligan, she had learned more about the universe than she had ever dreamt possible. She was still having a hard time believing that not all aliens were hostile—but Martha had spoken so warmly of this 'Doctor' of hers and Jack's, of other aliens she'd met in her travels. Perhaps they were right, perhaps most of the aliens out there were just like them, just regular 'people' trying to get through their day, their lives, as best as they could. They made mistakes…_fell in love…_ she stretched each leg fully before resuming her jog. She did not want to think about Tony, not right now. Besides, it wasn't as if he was thinking about her… why would he be? Just because she missed him did not mean that he missed her. He was probably…

She gave herself a mental shake; it was better to concentrate on the ground beneath her feet, the water over her shoulder, than it was to think about what Tony might be doing or with whom. After all, he had not really meant it when he said that he was in love with her. He couldn't have. She was not his type.

Yes, Ziva thought as she approached the Tourist Office, she had made the correct decision to leave as she had and spare them both the awkwardness of the 'morning after.'

She wasn't especially surprised to find Sam already in the office when she let herself in, even though it wasn't even six thirty yet. She knew he had his own place—he had moved into what used to be Sara's flat, across the street from Jack and Ianto—but it seemed to Ziva as if the boy practically lived in the Tourist Office. Perhaps like Jack, his species did not require much sleep.

"Good morning, Ms David," he greeted her with a shy, warm smile and a bottle of water. "I thought you might like this after your run."

"Thank you, Sam," she returned his smile with one of her own; she pulled the bright orange knit-cap off her head and shoved it into her hoodie pocket with one hand as she accepted the bottle from him with the other. Sam was almost as efficient as Ianto and twice as eager to please. She still did not see anything truly alien about the gawky looking teenager. He looked like any other kid… then again, most teenagers she met looked and acted like aliens...

He smiled again and hit the button under the desk to admit her into the Hub. "No one else is in," he told her. "Just Abby. She was here all night. I'm not sure if she's awake yet."

"Thank you, Sam," she said again. She unscrewed the bottle top and gulped down the water as she headed down the steps. A coffee would be nice too, but she was aware of the penalty for touching the coffee machine… if Ianto wasn't in after she'd had a shower and changed, she would go across the street to the Starbuck's.

As soon as the cog door rolled open, she was assaulted by the sound of Abby's 'music' (Julie Andrews, it was not.) "Good morning!" she had to holler to be heard over the sound.

"Oh!" the volume lowered. "Hey, Ziva!" Abby's voice was coming from the medical area.

The Israeli peered over to the railing. "What are you doing?" she asked. It appeared as if Abby were performing an autopsy…?

"I just wanted to brush up a little, you know, in case something comes up while Bobby's gone. Besides, what else do I have to do while I wait for Junior here to come out?" she wanted to know. She'd gotten used to field work. There were still parts of it she hated—she hated the city morgue. The coroner was so… so _not _Ducky. Not even Jimmy. He was stuffy. Stale. She'd met dead people who were more interesting…well, she supposed that comparing anybody to Henry Fitzroy was a little unfair… but at least that thought made her smile, just a little.

For the next thirty five weeks and two days (not that she was counting), she was going to be stuck inside the Hub (at least when she was at work) and it was driving her crazy. (Of course it was driving Bobby a bit mad that she kept invading 'his' space, but it wasn't as if he never invaded hers and he never put things back just exactly the way she wanted them put. Not ever. Not that she disturbed his stuff on purpose or anything, her way just made more sense… ) She pulled off the latex gloves and bounded up the stairs. "I thought you were leaving this morning?" she asked with an inquisitive look.

"My luggage is packed and Jack is picking me up in an hour, but… I suppose I am going to miss being here," she admitted. Jack's Torchwood was very different from Martha's Torchwood, but both felt like home to her—however, there was something about Cardiff that she liked. Perhaps it was that Timothy and Abby worked here…not that she hadn't become quite fond of Martha's team—

"Oh Ziva!" Abby pulled her into a fierce hug. "You have to promise to email me every day! And call."

Ziva gave her a dubious look.

"Jack's paying the bill—"

"I heard that!" the Captain hollered over; he'd just come in the rolling door, himself. He was carrying a cup holder that had three cups in it. "I told Ianto to stay home a little longer," he explained as he handed them each a cup. It was a slight fib; Ianto had still been sleeping when he left, but he had left him a note.

"Tell her she has to call me every day," Abby ordered him. She lifted the lid of her tea and blew across the top to cool it. It was mint and chamomile, her new morning favourite, since Bobby had made her swear off caffeine. He said it was bad enough that her blood stream had practically turned to coffee since she'd been there. It was all Ianto's fault.

And although he felt sympathy for Ziva, Jack wasn't about to argue with a pregnant woman…or a pregnant man for that matter. "You heard the lady, Ms David. She's right, you know, I am paying the bill—or at least the government is," he smirked, sipping his coffee. Definitely not as good as his Welshman's, but the only way he could have gotten a cup of his husband's 'coffee magic' would have been to wake him up and he'd looked too peaceful to even consider it.

For her part, Ziva wanted to argue about the impracticality of promising to call everyday, but she could tell by his expression that there was no way to win such an argument. She was not always certain she believed everything that Jack Harkness said, but she believed him when he said that he had carried both Seren and Jason and that that made him especially sensitive to the needs and wishes of pregnant people (she was learning to be careful about expressing things like pregnancy in terms of gender around the Captain. Apparently by his time, such lines had become quite fuzzy…blurry… blurred. Yes, the lines between gender had been blurred.)

How Ziva had gotten to a place in her life where she simply accepted his pregnancy as a matter of course, she wasn't entirely certain, but here she was, sipping her coffee, wishing Jack had been just a little bit more specific about what exactly it was he was expecting to encounter in Washington D.C. She was uncertain as to whether or not Leon Vance was still gunning for her, although Jack assured her that that was his problem, not hers.... A sound from above diverted her attention from her thoughts—it was the pterodactyl coming in from her nightly jaunt. She did a quick turn of the Hub, most likely assuring herself that everything was as it should be, and then vanished into her alcove. Ziva drank her coffee. It was just another morning at Torchwood.

She turned her attention back to Abby. "All right," she relented. "I will call you every day. I promise."

Her grin was as bright as one of Jack's; her green eyes sparkled. "Good. Now… I know you said not to make a big deal or anything, but I got you a going away present."

"Abby—" but again, she knew there was no winning the argument.

"Ianto helped," she added, tugging Ziva towards her lab.

The Israeli glanced at her boss—he was grinning. Apparently he was also privy to this going away present.

"I needed him to figure out your size," Abby was explaining, "he's got an amazing eye."

"That's not all that's amazing," Jack leered.

Abby shot him a glare, but it was short lived.

Chuckling, the Captain headed to his office; he had a couple of things to take care of before they left, but if he got them done quickly, he could be back home before Ianto even woke up. (He'd turned off the alarm before he left; Ianto might kill him over it but…well, he deserved to sleep in now and then.)

After shuffling a couple of things into order, Jack picked up the phone and dialled his daughter's number. "Sorry for calling so early," he apologized as soon as she answered with a sleepy hello.

"Dad…?" sudden worry tinged Alice's voice.

"Everything's fine," he assured her. "I just… I'm going to be out of the country for a couple of days. I wanted to call and say… I guess I just wanted to hear your voice before I headed out." Which was silly, really, he could call her from DC just as easily as he called her from Cardiff. But still… "I hope… I hope that's ok…?"

"Of course it is, Dad," the tone of her voice warmed him. "Would you like to talk to Steven?" she asked.

"Is he awake?"

"He just got up. Hang on—it'll give me a minute to get my tea," she added with an audible smile. "Then I can talk to you properly awake."

Jack just smiled. He was no more certain than Ziva when this had become his life, but he'd lived it for long enough to know that he wouldn't trade it in for anything.

* * *

_Loudoun County,  
Virginia, (USA)  
a suburb of Washington D.C._

On the other side of the Atlantic, blissfully unaware that his life was about to be disrupted, Jack Hodgins rolled over in his sleep, stirring to wakefulness. The other side of the bed was empty—but that wasn't unusual. He hauled himself to his feet, and wrapped dark terrycloth bathrobe around his body—only the people who saw him outside of work realized that under his blue lab coat and usually baggy shirts and sweaters, he was in better than average physical condition. He certainly didn't look like the type who worked out—or perhaps he might have if he dressed a little differently. He had full beard, a head of curly hair that while not long sometimes earned him looks from people who didn't know him and made judgements based solely upon appearances.

Although the house was huge, it didn't take him long to find his wife (he never got tired of thinking of her as his wife). She was pretty much always in the same place. Once in a while he'd find her over at Zack's apartment chatting with him, but usually she was in her studio, painting, sometimes sculpting. The last six or seven months had seen her producing more work and he loved it, even if it meant she spent a little less time in bed with him. The more she indulged her creativity, the happier she seemed and the happier she was, the happier he was too… a decidedly non-vicious cycle, he mused as he made his way towards her studio.

He smiled quietly watching her a moment from the doorway. She was seated cross-legged on the floor in front of a six foot by six foot canvas, wearing one of his old t-shirts, a pair of plaid shorts and mis-matched socks. Her long dark hair was pulled back haphazardly into a bun and secured in place by a pair of long thin paint brushes.

"Morning, beautiful," he broke her trance as gently as he could, offering over a cup of coffee when she turned around.

"I'm not sure about the beautiful part, but is it really morning already?" She set down her brush and took the cup of coffee he was offering. She hadn't actually been painting anyway. There _was_ paint on the canvas—a lot of it, in fact. But half way through, the work had begun to change, take a new shape. Formlessness gave way to form, a hazy memory form the half forgotten dream that had roused her from sleep.

"It's five thirty," he answered her question about whether or not it was really morning.

"Damn. I lost track of time."

Hodgins just shrugged and sat down behind her. "What're you working on?" he asked, gazing up at the image that was starting to take shape on the canvas. It looked like a person, but no one he knew.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. Blue eyes. Swatches of red and yellow… Dimples. Dark hair. A patch of night sky with a perfect full moon, the London skyline silhouetted against it. Strong hands rested themselves on her shoulders and began easing away the tension that always seemed to creep into her muscles when she was painting. Angela smiled.

"You hungry?" he asked after the worst of the knots had been removed. "I could make us a couple of omelettes. It's almost time to get up anyway," he added. She had yoga class in an hour.

"Sometimes I wonder why you put up with me."

"That's an easy one," he leant in, found her lips, savoured her kiss. "There. Answer your question?"

She just grinned, shaking her head. It couldn't really be that simple…could it? She was sure Sweets (Dr Lance Sweets, their resident psychiatrist) would have a long and complicated answer if she asked him what made two very different people work as well together as her and Jack… but maybe she liked her husband's answer better after all. She leant towards him again, half turning as she did, so she could kiss him more fully.

"I need a shower," she murmured when their lips parted at last.

"Why don't—" he began, but she cut him off:

"Why don't you join me in the shower and we can grab a bite to eat on the way into work." Her smile was pure mischief.

"Hmmmm…." he pretended to have to consider his options.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**April 26, 2010**

"_Jealousy is a tiger that tears not only its prey  
but also its own raging heart"_

~Author Unknown

* * *

_Washington D.C., USA_

_._

"What, a whole new team, Jack?" Captain John Hart smirked as he stood to greet the quartet approaching the park bench where he'd been waiting—he hated waiting. Jack was taking point, of course, striding down the sidewalk like he owned it, that RAF greatcoat of his flapping in the in the cold mid-morning breeze. He always had been one to make a big flashy entrance.

John on the other hand looked like any other tourist, or possibly even a local, decked out in black denim and cotton his leather jacket unzipped, leather boots on his feet—they went with the motorcycle parked near by. While no less flamboyant in personality than his former partner—his former lover—he did recognize the value of blending in, at least when on a backwards little planet like Earth. "You really need to work on your people skills if you can't even keep one little team together," he told his former partner with a sneer. "And you didn't bring Eye Candy… now isn't _that_ interesting?"

He didn't extend his hand, but he did slide in close enough to the take in that magnificent fifty first century scent. It wasn't just the familiarity of Jack's pheromones that brought a surge of longing for his own time, his own people, made him ache inside, it was everything that this particular man used to be to him, of what they used to be to each other—what he thought they were to each other. It seemed like a lifetime ago. A tremor of yearning…desire... shoot through his whole body at the memory.

Or maybe, he tried to tell himself, all he was really doing was pining after 'forbidden fruit', because all it took was a glance at Jack's left hand to see that he was still married to the other man.

He was also giving over a very dark look.

John ignored it, flashing his attention to the attractive blond standing to Jack's right instead. "I see you finally went and got yourself a blond," he leered… shaggy hair, blue eyes… he looked like was trying to look the part of the bad 'bad boy', especially with the brown leather coat. It was kinda cute, even if he was sure the other man would never cut it as a real bad boy. "What's your name, handsome?"

Jack answered for him, introducing the whole team. "Dr Robert Chase. Dr Shane Bruster—hands off," he snapped when John sidled up to Shane. "And Ms Ziva David," he concluded. He supposed he should warn John about keeping his hands off Ziva…but then again, it might be amusing to watch the Israeli warn him, herself. "Captain John Hart," he concluded, needlessly. Ianto had briefed them. Thoroughly. _**Very**_ thoroughly.

Ignorant of that fact, John returned his attention to the blond. "A doctor is it?" his brows rose suggestively. "Maybe later on you could give me a private anatomy lesson…? Or maybe I could give you one."

"I was under the impression you didn't _need_ lessons, Captain Hart—and I can assure you that neither do I." It wasn't so much his choice of words but his tone that drove the message home.

John turned back to Jack. "I think I liked your old team better," he said. "They were a lot more fun."

"Until you tried to kill them." Jack regretted the words almost they instant they were out of his mouth, just as soon as he saw the pained look in John's eyes…eyes that he realized suddenly had a few more wrinkles around them. There were more grey hairs scattered amongst his curls, too. He was starting to look his age, not that Jack knew exactly how old he really was. He'd gotten his vortex manipulator working; he could have been away for months or days or even years. "I meant the first time," he said in a softer tone. He hadn't meant to imply… he didn't blame John for Tosh and Owen. He never had.

In typical fashion, John shrugged off both his comment and his apology. "All right, kiddies, let's get this over with, shall we? I've got places to go and people to do—and since clearly Captain Killjoy here isn't going to let me do any of you—unless of course you'd like to sneak off behind his back…any takers?" He shrugged when they remained mute. "All right then. The Jeffersonian is that way," he pointed up the walk towards a stately, sprawling, complex, complete with winter-barren gardens and a large fountain out front. "You'll find your little artefact in the South American wing. The idiots in there actually think some native tribe made it. I can't believe my ancestors were actually born on this miserable little planet," he grumbled. "No offence," he added without sincerity to Jack's friends.

"You're coming with us," said the immortal man. It wasn't a request.

"Why, do you think I made the whole thing up just to get you here?" he challenged him.

The other didn't reply, he just gave him a look which clearly communicated that that was exactly what he thought.

"At least promise me we're going to have a little bit of fun," John all but pleaded. "A little smash and grab…?" his tone was hopeful. "C'mon, for old times' sake?"

Jack suppressed a sigh—and a smile. There had been a time when John's idea of fun and his idea of fun were the same…or at least similar enough that it didn't matter. However, "We're going to handle this diplomatically," he informed the other in a firm tone, glancing at the rest of his team as he did, wondering what exactly they were thinking. Ziva and Bobby remained impassive, Shane looked…he looked like he always did, as eager as a six month old puppy and full of questions. "Come on," he started walking again before the younger man got the chance to ask any of them.

"I swear, Jack, you used to be a lot more fun," said John as the headed up the street towards their destination "What happened to you?"

"I grew up."

* * *

Rather than showing his ID and then trying to explain exactly who and what Torchwood was to the elderly lady at the admissions counter, Jack simply handed over his credit card…well, the Torchwood credit card, which didn't actually have the name Torchwood written on it. It was in his name… maybe Ianto was right, maybe Torchwood did end and begin with him.

"I still think you should have called your team Excalibur," John muttered at him, distracting him from his thoughts.

"I didn't name it. I just went along with the name they already had." Which John knew perfectly well.

"Is he always this annoying?" Ziva inquired then, in Jack's direction; the lady at the ticket counter handed him back his card and asked him politely to sign the slip. He flashed a broad grin, just because.

"I'm right here, you know," John said to her, before Jack could actually answer. "And I'm perfectly capable of speaking for myself."

"Yes. I am well aware of the Captain. What I would like to know is if you are capable of shutting down."

"Erm...I think you mean shut up," Shane began...she glared. "Right...which is exactly what I'm going to do now," he forced a smile in the Israeli's direction.

Jack smirked, "Come on, kids," he opened up the little fold out map the lady had given him along with a sweet as apple pie smile in response to his grin. "Let's get this over with. It looks like the South American exhibit is this way," he headed down a long corridor past a long line of dinosaur skeletons…

* * *

"I'm telling you it was right here," John insisted when they got to the exhibit—and found nothing of alien design nestled amongst the artefacts on display. "I'm not lying!" he insisted, just a little too loudly.

"I am getting a residual reading," said Bobby. "It is definitely not something I've seen before," he handed the hand held energy detector over to his boss (despite the fact that Ziva was craning her neck for a better look—she glowered slightly when he gave it to Jack instead of letting her see). The Australian had slipped the detector out of his bag as surreptitiously as possible when the entered the exhibit. It was little surprise, really, that museum security had noticed them coming in and seemed to be watching them still, especially after John Hart's outburst. Subtle, the man was not. Then again, neither was Jack.

"All right," their Captain said, also seeming to have noticed security personnel inching closer. "Fan out. Whatever it is, it's got to be here somewhere."

"I'm telling you it was right there!" John insisted again.

"Just tell us what it looks like," said Ziva.

"It's a box, about this big," he made a couple of vague hand gestures. "It's stone—not from this planet—not even from this part of the galaxy. There's got alien writing all over it. I've never seen anything like it before," he said; Jack shot him another dark, almost accusatory look. "What? I didn't think the little details mattered that much before, because it _was_ right here! How was I supposed to know somebody would move the bloody thing? I did call you instead of trying to lift it myself," he added in a sanctimonious tone. "Isn't that what the good people of this miserable little world are supposed to do, call Torchwood when they find something alien?"

"Fine. Let's just find this thing and—"

"Erm, Jack," Shane interrupted him, seemingly self conscious of doing so, "if it's not here, it probably means somebody's having a look at it—you know, museum staff." He pointed the plaque in front of the exhibit that stated clearly that the objects in that particular case display had been discovered by the Jeffersonian's own Dr Temperance Brennan, while engaging in a humanitarian project in southern Chile six months ago. The artefact, most likely an ossuary, was unearthed in a contemporary gravesite, but was suspected to date back nearly a thousand years. Dr Brennan was allowed to bring it to the United States, as a permanent loan to the Jeffersonian museum—the Chilean government's way of thanking her for her efforts efforts.

"She's a brilliant lady," Shane added of the discoverer.

Jack's brows rose.

"I heard her speaking a couple of years ago. She was giving a talk on—"

He waved aside the details. "You can make the introductions after we've tracked this thing down." He handed the energy detector to Ziva and turned on his heel, heading for the anxious looking security guard to ask directions.

"I—but—Jack—" Shane objected helplessly to the older man's back. He looked over to Bobby. "I never actually met her, I just went to a lecture!"

The Australian smirked, "Welcome to Jack's Torchwood."

"Hi there," the Captain was already greeting the security guards with a bright smile that did little to disarm them. "I wonder if I could have a word with you fellas about something that used to be right over there…" he went on, intentionally oblivious to the nervous looks the pair were giving one another…

* * *

"Oh. My. God," Angela breathed. Barely rememed to breahte. She'd stopped dead in her tracks, nearly dropping her sketch pad when she saw… "Jack."

Hodgins and Zack both looked up from a human rib bone they'd been examining in the main area of the lab, trying to determine what might have caused an unusual mark in the bone, possibly the fatal wound. It was evidence in crime scene the Jeffersonian's staff was consulting on for the FBI, mostly because the Feds had had the remains for some while but had come up empty. The details of the case were less than interesting, at least compared to some of the other cases they'd had in the past. Or at least they seemed that way so far, the body had only recently been handed over to them. They'd both been hoping things might perk up a bit as they got into it. However, just in that very moment, the rib had lost what little meagre interest it had previously held.

Angela was staring transfixed at a knot of people who had just come into the lab (under no small protest from security). Clearly, whoever they were, they didn't belong, but that didn't seem to be deterring the guy in the vintage WWW II RAF greatcoat who quite clearly was the leader of the pack.

"Ange—?" Hodgins began. She wasn't even looking at him when she said out his name again.

"I don't think she's talking to you," Zack pointed out the obvious; his statement earned him a glower.

Oblivious to the exchange, Angela pelted towards the interlopers, her grin becoming broader when their leader looked up and spotted her. Within the span of just a few heartbeats, hardly enough time for anyone to even blink, she had been swept up into the stranger's arms.

He lifted her up off the ground and twirled her around twice despite the loud objections of the security guards. Angela laughed (at the way he was spinning her around, not at the poor guards who had never stood a chance) and accepted the warm kiss Jack Harkness pressed to her lips.

"I'd almost forgotten how good you were at that," her voice was a soft purr, as she grinned at him.

"Well let me remind you again—"

She just grinned some more and shook her head. "I think I'd forgotten _that _about you too. What are you doing here?"

"That's kind of a long story," he admitted.

"And what a shame Eye Candy isn't here hear you tell it," John muttered half under his breath, but not so quietly that he couldn't be heard...


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:**

Thank you for the lovely reviews! Yes, Angela and Jack have a history… it started out as a random thought during the Bones story arc with her ex husband (for those who don't watch Bones, she didn't even realize the marriage was legal, it involved a whirl wind affair, a drunken night and a native ceremony in Fiji. The State Department, however, considered it legally binding and interrupted her wedding to Hodgins… she had to track down her ex and convince him to sign the divorce papers.)

* * *

**Chapter Four**

**April 26, 2010**

"_The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves"_

William Penn

* * *

"I really hate to break this up—I think," said a new voice. It belonged to an attractive medium-dark skinned woman with high cheekbones and smooth black hair pulled back away from a face dominated by large, almond shaped brown eyes. She was giving over an inquisitive look and genuinely sounded as she mean it when she said she hated to break up the obvious reunion going on between Angela Montenegro Hoggins and the stranger in the RAF greatcoat. However, "But who are you?" she asked him.

His smile never wavered (in fact, it seemed to brighten just a bit as he extended his hand in her direction). "Captain Jack Harkness, Ma'am. At your service."

"Don't you start," Angela scolded him, sounding so much like the Doctor that he almost laughed.

"I don't think I mind…" the other woman accepted his handshake. "Dr Camille Saroyan," she introduced herself.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr Camille Saroyan."

"Just Cam is fine, Captain."

"Jack," he told her. He hadn't let go of her hand.

Angela shot him a dark look.

"I'm just saying hello," he almost managed to sound convincingly innocent. "Gheez," he added in frustration.

His expression make Cam snicker.

At the same time as her boss was snickering, "I know you, remember?" Angela reminded him.

His response was a quick waggle of the eyebrows and a mischievous grin.

(Ziva leant over towards Bobby, "Is it always like this when he meets a woman?" she asked, very, very quietly—no one else seemed to hear. The medic smirked and told her that woman, man, it didn't much matter with Jack. Shane fidgeted, just a little, craning his neck for a better look at the lab and wondering what he would have to do to convince Martha that they needed a set up like this.)

"You still haven't told me who you are," Cam was saying, looking at expectantly Angela for some further explanation.

By that time Hodgins, with Zack on his heels, had joined them. "I'd like to know that myself," he echoed Cam's query, and looking directly at his wife.

(No one seemed to hear John's comment about the possessive behaviour of lower primates.)

"Oh, right, sorry," Jack answered before Angela got the chance. He dug around in his pocket for the picture ID he rarely bothered with inside the UK, and handed it over to Cam. He sounded sincere, but Hodgins clearly had his doubts—and he was still looking expectantly at Angela.

"Sorry," she began… but then she paused and looked from him to Harkness and back again. "Ok this is too weird," she declared. "Jack, I'd like you to meet Jack," she grinned, seemingly oblivious to Hodgins' sour expression.

"Captain Jack Harkness," he extended his hand with a friendly smile.

"Yeah, I got that already." The other neither returned his smile nor accepted his hand. "_**Dr**_ Jack Hodgins. Angela's husband," he added, since his wife seemed to have forgotten that part.

Harkness' smile broadened back to Cheshire grin, startling the other Jack. It wasn't the reaction he'd expected of what could only be some old boyfriend.

"Really?" the Captain asked. "That's great!" He took the other man's hand, despite his unwillingness to give it, pumping it hard and clapping him on the shoulder with the other.

(John rolled his eyes and groaned. Only _Jack_ would react like that to finding out some old girlfriend—because really what else could she be?—had gotten herself married to a hairy little Neanderthal.)

"Um, ok," Camille interrupted again, "Excuse me…" she added when it was obvious that no one was listening to her.

"Sorry, Doc," Jack turned his attention back to her. "Angie and me go back a few years."

Cam grinned at Angela. "I'll bet. There must be quite a story there…"

Angela nearly blushed—Angela _never_ blushed.

"Oh my," was all Cam had to say to that.

"Angela and Captain Harkness were lovers," Zack concluded suddenly—and entirely too loudly. "Am I wrong?" he asked when he discovered that all eyes were focused on him, some of them expressing outright hostility (especially Hodgins, who was supposed to be his best friend). He looked helplessly to Angela for guidance. She was the one who kept saying he needed to learn to read body language, to 'read between the lines', even though there were never any lines to read between, nothing was actually written down. But both Dr Sweets and Booth said the same thing…

John was laughing, "The boy must be a bloody genius."

"As a matter of fact," the young man in question began, having missed the sarcasm entirely.

"Yes, Zack, we were lovers," Angela confirmed in a subdued tone, cutting him off (having not missed the sarcasm). "It's just not the kind of thing you're supposed to blurt out like that." She laid her hand on his arm when his confusion became apparent. "Don't worry, Sweetie, you'll get the hang of it eventually."

"How long ago is a 'few years'?" Hodgins wanted to know.

"Jealous much?" John asked him.

"Oh you should talk," Bobby couldn't keep it in any longer.

"I was in college, Jack," Angela ignored the side conversation. "I spent a summer London. It was no big deal."

Cam cleared her throat, making the attempt to steer the conversation back to more pertinent matters. "I've never heard of Torchwood," she told Harkness, handing his ID back to him. "So—"

Hodgins cut her off. "No way. Torchwood?" his open hostility turned rapidly to a mix of curiosity and disbelief. "You guys are with _Torchwood?"_

"What's Torchwood?" asked Zack.

"We are," Jack answered him in a tone that suggested the answer, as vague as it was, should be satisfactory. "Dr Robert Chase, Ms Ziva David, Dr Shane Bruster. And John Hart," he made the introductions.

"That's _Captain_ John Hart," the other former Time Agent corrected, sounding peeved. "At your service—yours too, Genius Boy," he added in a lascivious tone in Zack's direction.

"Oh God, not you, too," Angela looked accusingly up at Jack.

"I was there before you were, Missy," John informed her in a smugly sanctimonious tone.

"Really now?" Angela sounded more intrigued than insulted.

"Oh, and it gets better," the told her. He nodded at Jack's left hand.

She blinked—but the platinum band, once brought to her attention, was impossible to miss. "_No._ _Way._ **You!?** Ok, spill it, Harkness," she settled her hands on her hips. "Who is she…or he?"

He just grinned; Angela's tone was severe when she told him to 'spill it', but the glee in her brown eyes was unmistakable. "He," he told her.

"Details?"

"Welsh. Gorgeous. He makes a hell of a cup of coffee," he grinned. "And he looks good in a suit, too" he smirked. He could almost hear Ianto's voice reminding him that that was harassment. _Blue grey eyes…a red UNIT cap… chocolate chip cookies… pineapples… the turn of his nose, the way he smiled in his sleep… _Welsh vowels. _**All two of them**__… _all of the things he never wanted to forget about his beautiful Welshman.

"Pictures?" Angela inquired.

"Lots…but I think I'd better go talk to your boss first…" he glanced towards Cam, having guessed that she was probably in charge, despite her lack of ability to keep the conversation focused.

She nodded. "My office is this way…and just what is Torchwood, _exactly_?" she emphasized the last word to drive home her point, 'we are' wasn't going to cut it.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:**

Just a short one in which nothing really gets explained, but the characters just seemed to take over and this was the result… although to be fair, this is a more character driven piece than usual for me (apologies to anyone expecting a huge plotline…but yes, that box will be explained in greater detail for sure.)

* * *

**Chapter Five**

**26 April, 2010**

"_The popularity of conspiracy theories is explained by people's desire  
to believe that there is some group of folks who knows what they're doing."_

Damon Knight

* * *

"What is Torchwood?" Zack Addy asked, mostly in Hodgins' direction. The introductions had been made and there wasn't much else to be done while waiting for Jack and Cam to finish talking—except maybe go back to work before Dr Brennan called expecting test results, but there didn't seem to be any way of prying Hodgins away from the group from Torchwood.

Captain John Hart swaggered towards the young man, leering at him as he did. "You know, for a genius, you're really not the sharpest tool in the toybox."

Ziva scowled at him. "Is it not 'tool in the shed'?" she wanted to know. She was certain Tony had told her… _Tony… _why did everything always come back to Tony DiNozzo? She cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring her own inner thoughts.

"You can keep your tools in a shed if you want to, Beautiful, but I keep mine in a 'toybox' under my bed," Hart turned his leer on her. "Of course if you've got a fetish for power tools and workbenches, far be it from me to judge," he shot over a lascivious smirk. It wasn't well received.

Bobby almost said something, warning him—he'd seen Ziva take down a pair of Weevils, singlehandedly, without so much as breaking a sweat. She'd done it in record time, (which he only knew because Mickey kept tabs on such things. According to him, Jack had been the record holder for taking down Weevils, with Ianto a close second; now it was Ziva on top, then Jack, then Ianto, a mental image their Captain hadn't minded one bit… _go figure…_). On further reflection of the current situation, the medic decided to let it play out on its own. Ianto would thank him later, if Ziva ended decking Hart for getting too close. Better still if she…

Angela's voice cut through his not all together unpleasant thoughts: "Down, boy," she scolded John as if he were an errant puppy, "or you might hurt yourself."

John turned a soft almost pouting glance her way; she ignored it completely, suggesting that Zack do the same.

Suddenly the young man seemed to understand. He looked John dead in the face and told him very calmly that he wasn't homosexual—or bisexual for that matter—but that he was flattered anyway. The last seemed to be added more as an attempt at social nicety than anything else.

Regardless, John was flummoxed. It was one thing to be rebuffed by Eye Candy's dry wit and dead-pan sarcasm, or to be not so politely ignored by him, because Jack's husband honestly didn't like him—the feeling was mutual—but this boy here was clueless! How could anybody possibly be so clueless, even in as backwards a time as the twenty-first century?

Ignorant of the other's thoughts and feeling as if he'd amicably settled matters between himself and Captain Hart, Zack turned back to Hodgins, hoping to have his initial inquiry answered.

The older man looked at him, looked at the visitors—glanced at Angela—and then when it appeared as if no one was going to answer him (which only proved he was right), he said: "They're the ultimate in Men in Black, Zack—spooks who answer to no one. Beyond the government. Outside the police. They can go anywhere, do anything."

"Actually, it's outside the government and beyond the police," Bobby corrected him in a dry tone that rivalled Ianto's. He was leaning back casually against a railing, looking more bored than anything else. He shrugged when the other gave over an askance look. It was like arguing with House; the best recourse was not to disagree with the base premise of the argument, just poke at the little details—and mostly that was for his own personal amusement.

"We are not 'spooks', we do not engage in espionage," Ziva began in an indignant tone. She looked to Bobby for back up, never mind that the medic's words were an echo of Jack's—Bobby was taking them out of context. However, to her glower, he just shrugged again. (As for Shane, he looked out of his depth, reminding her of McGee his first few months at NCIS.) So she took point, standing between the rest of her team and Hodgins. "Torchwood is here operating under an agreement with UNIT, in accordance with international law," she informed Hodgins and the other. "We may intervene in any local investigation where alien activity is suspected. Our authority supersedes all local, state and federal authority in any case where…"

"Whoa," said a new voice. It belonged to the leader of a trio of people heading their way (unchallenged by security, _must be nice_, thought John); the speaker was tall and handsome, wearing a black suit and tie, a white shirt…

_Which makes __**him **__the 'Men in Black, not Jack's merry little band of do-gooders… _John Hart mused with an appreciative leer in Tall Dark and Handsome's direction. He didn't seem to notice… _why are the gorgeous ones always oblivious? _Not that the other two with him weren't the sorts he would have kicked out of bed for eating crackers, either.

The second man—or boy perhaps, thought John, because he didn't look any older than Boy Genuis over there—was even sweeter-faced than the young scientist in question (if that was possible). He had full, sweet lips and a lithe build and oh the things he could do with that body… He didn't wear his suit as well as Eye Candy…but then again, suits were meant for looking good crumpled up at the foot of the bed…

As for the woman… well… definitely no complaints. She had classically attractive features, but more than that, he appreciated that while she dressed herself in a stuffed suit to keep up, no doubt, with the sad gender bias of the current century, she seemed to have a streak of individuality—a large turquoise and wood bead necklace that he doubted was standard MIB issue (not that he actually put in stock in Men in Black, per se, but it was pretty obvious, at least to a well trained Time Agent eye, that the lead guy was carrying a gun, and that meant he had to be law enforcement of some flavour or colour.)

Lead Guy was still speaking to Ziva: "Who are you?" he wanted to know. Nobody had the authority to supersede local and federal authority…

"Ziva David," she turned towards him, hand extended. "Torchwood liaison to UNIT."

…_except Torchwood… _He blinked, visibly taken aback at the words 'Torchwood' and 'UNIT'; he opened up his mouth to say more, but Zack had started talking, addressing the woman:

"I'm sorry, Dr Brennan, I tried to go back to work," he began, speaking rapidly. Nervously.

_Like a kid whose hand's been caught in the cookie jar,_ thought John.

At the same time, Shane was on his feet, talking to her too, "Dr Brennan…I'm sure you don't remember me, but I attended a lecture you gave at Atlantic State a few years ago," he sounded just as nervous as Zack Addy. "My name is Shane, Shane Bruster—well… Dr Shane Bruster," he seemed uncomfortable with his own title. "It's an honour to meet you—you know, in person. I mean, your lecture was in person…" he gave over an embarrassed laugh. "I'm a huge admirer of your work, Dr Brennan—your real work I mean, not the writing. Not that there's anything wrong with the writing, your books are fascinating—" he added quickly, heat overtaking his cheeks.

John just barely bit down on a snicker; he shot Angela a look, as if challenging her for treating _him_ like an errant pup when it was pretty clear the distinction belonged to Bruster.

Brennan accepted his handshake with a warm smile that only seemed to make Shane blush harder. "Of course I remember you, Dr Bruster," she affirmed with a smile. "Only four students showed up. You should have come to talk to me afterwards, I would have been more than happy to speak with you."

His cheeks turned redder still. "It was…erm…that is it, it was three students and me. I was doing field work in the Appalachians and heard about your lecture from a colleague. I sort of crashed…. Well, not really, my colleague was Dr Rainer at Atlantic State, he invited me, but I just figured the room would be packed and you wouldn't even notice me. Anyway, I didn't want to intrude on you afterwards—but it was a brilliant lecture."

"Thank you—"

"Um, excuse me," Lead Guy interrupted them. "What's Torchwood doing at the Jeffersonian?" he asked Ziva David.

"I'm sorry, you are?" she inquired right back at him.

"Special Agent Seely Booth, FBI."

"How do you know about Torchwood?" Hodgins wanted to know.

"_Special _Agent," he retorted. "It's my job to know things."

John just leered, the question 'how special?' playing on the tip of his tongue and across his face, although he tactfully (for once) kept his mouth shut. Sometimes it was more entertaining to sit back and watch. "I still think they should have gone with Bikini Cops," he observed, despite his resolve to silently watch. As predicted, the comment garnered little more than a few dark looks.

"What's Torchwood?" asked Brennan.

Hodgins looked at David.

"We are not spies," she said again.

"But you don't answer to anybody."

"Sure they do," Jack finally emerged from Cam's office; she was just on his heels. "They answer to me. Got a problem with that?"

"Cam, what's going on?" Brennan asked her.

Hodgins' ignored her question to their boss. "Yes I've got a problem with that," he began.

"Jack, please," Angela hissed at him.

"I've got a problem with anybody who operates outside the government—"

"You think the governments are so swell?" Jack challenged him. "I could tell you a think or two about your governments."

"Jack," this time Angela directed her plea at Harkness.

"And I'll bet I could tell you a thing or two, too," Hodgins met his challenge. "What I'd like to know is what makes you any better?"

"Oh the ways I could answer that," John said softly, wistfully, under his breath.

"It doesn't really matter," Cam put an end to the conversation before it got any worse—or the testosterone in the room got any more thick. "The point is that Torchwood has authority here."

"To do what?" Brennan wanted to know.

"They're here for that ossuary you brought back from South America."

"They can't—you can't," she redirected her argument at the man in the great coat. "That artefact is on loan…"

"I'm afraid it's ours now," he told her in a surprisingly, genuinely apologetic tone.

"On whose authority?"

"Theirs," Hodgins told her.

Harkness shrugged.

"Jack, what's going on?" Angela asked him.

"You've got something that doesn't belong here," he told her. "I won't be sure what it is until my team has a chance to look at it—"

"Why _your _team?" Hodgins demanded.

"Because you people don't have the equipment or—"

"Erm… Jack," Shane cut in. "They do have some pretty sophisticated stuff here. I just meant… you know… before we go taking some alien artefact on a plane or something, maybe we should at least know if it's a 'cooker, an iron or a gun'…?"

Jack almost regretted insisting that Shane be so thoroughly familiar with Torchwood safety protocols.

"Is it really alien?" Angela wanted to know.

"Probably," said Jack; now that the cat was out of the bag there wasn't much point in lying, or even sugar coating it for that matter. He gave Shane a dark look—the boy ducked his head apologetically. He didn't know it, but Jack didn't stay angry at him for more than the time it took him to finish his next sentence. "All right, in accordance with agreements, yada, yada… we're…. that is," he stopped. Angela was glaring at him. He cleared his throat and turned his attention to Dr Brennan, speaking in a more civil tone. "We'd like to borrow the use of your facility for a day or two, just to run a few tests."

She opened her mouth, closed it again and looked at Cam, who just shrugged.

"You can't just waltz in here…" Booth began to object.

"Actually, we can," Bobby told him. "Look," he said to Brennan, "We won't get in your way. All I need is a secure place to work. You'll hardly know we're here, I promise."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:**

Yes, the lithe guy from the last chapter was Sweets.

Thank you again for the wonderful reviews… it's really difficult to juggle that many characters in a scene, so I really appreciate the positive feedback :-)

* * *

**Chapter Six**

**26 April , 2010**

_"Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it."_

Swedish Proverb

* * *

"This is some serious cool software," Shane gaped at Angela's set up. What Mickey, Tim or Abby wouldn't do to get their hands on a set up like this… "You put this together yourself, yeah?"

"Actually, I wrote the programme," she told him, no small amount of pride coming through in her tone.

His eyes bulged further. "Get out! No—seriously?"

She chuckled softly, "Yes, seriously."

"Beauty and brains, I like it," John sauntered in looking bored. The 'squints' were off doing squinty things (he was starting to really like Tall Dark and Handsome), and Jack's blond medic (a man with absolutely no sense of humour) was getting set up somewhere… he didn't know where Ziva had skedaddled off to, but Jack was calling Ianto, which meant that he needed air. Or at least he needed to be somewhere else before his teeth rotted out of his head for all the sweetness… not that… Jack wasn't really being gushy or anything, he wasn't the sort to smother someone in verbal 'I love yous', but he could see in the immortal man's eyes how much he loved his husband. All he wanted was for Jack to have loved him like that—it didn't have to be now, he would be content if he'd _ever_ loved him that much, just once, just for a minute…

"Don't you have some rock you need to go crawl back under?" Angela asked him.

"Oooh, smart, drop dead gorgeous, _and_ a sharp wit. I think I'm in love," he smirked.

She just sighed and turned back to Shane. "So… the South American artifact, that ossuary. Do you really think it's alien?"

"Yes," said John.

"Probably," said Shane. "I don' know, honestly," he told her the truth. "I'm kinda new at this whole alien thing," he blushed, sending another wave of pheromones in John's direction.

"And Jack brought you along why?" Angela wondered.

Shane shrugged. "I reckon he figured I spoke 'anthropologist'—I am. An anthropologist. Archaeologist, really, I—."

"I get it," she cut him off.

"Sorry. Guess I'm a bit nervous."

"A bit?" John queried, leaning back against the nearest counter. "What is this place?" he asked Angela.

"I'm an artist. This is where I work."

"Pretty high tech finger paints you've got there—" he leant forward again—she smacked his hand.

"Hands off—that goes for _everything_ in my lab," she added. Where Jack was (mostly) charming in his lecherousness, John was just plain pushy. She couldn't honestly imagine the two of them together for more than about ten minutes.

"What's the story with you and Jack," Shane asked then, "if you don't mind m' asking…?"

Her smile turned warm. Winsome. "What can I say, he knows how to show a girl a good time. He's smart, funny… a gentleman," she said sharply, looking directly at John, who did a good job of feigning innocence—or at least ignorance. "But it was just a fling," she added in Shane's direction; his confusion seemed genuine. "It was summer, I was on vacation… it was fun. That's all it was ever meant to be."

"You are an amazingly liberated woman," John said then, with an earnestness that startled her. "I meant it as a complimenet," he added when it looked like she didn't believe him. "Most of the people in this century are so boring."

"Thanks. I think." She didn't know quite how to take his comments.

"It doesn't bother you, then?" he queried.

"What doesn't bother me?"

"Jack and another man…his little house husband?"

Angela looked at him a moment, understanding dawning. He was jealous… "No," she said honestly. "It doesn't bother me… any more than it bothered him about my ex girlfriends," she added, just to see the look on the blond's face.

John blinked a moment. "A very liberated woman. I _really _like it."

She flashed a wan smile. "I'm sure you do." Then, "Look, if you two don't mind, I've got work to do." She hated to chase Shane out of her lab, he seemed like a sweet kid, in a gangly puppy sort of way, but the other guy _had_ to go.

"Thanks for showing me around," the younger man told her in an earnest tone. "Maybe… maybe you'd let me… later… just see how it works, yeah?" he asked hopefully; he was looking longingly at her equipment with the same kind of envious lust John Hart had given in her direction.

"Come back later," she made a point of looking at Shane—and _only_ Shane—when she issued the invitation.

She wasn't completely surprised when Jack—her husband Jack—came in bare seconds after Shane and John had departed. She suspected he'd been waiting outside the lab for them to leave. He had that look on his face, kind of the same expression he'd worn when he found out she'd been married before and hadn't told him, mostly owing to the fact that she hadn't taken it seriously. It was a drunken ceremony on a beach in Fiji… how could she have known that anybody would take it seriously, let alone the State Department…? "You want an explanation," she said before he could ask.

"Yeah. I do."

"Jack…I was in college," she repeated. "I was in London over summer break. He was there on some kind of business… we met—"

"How?"

She sighed and folded her arms over her chest. "Does it really matter how we met?"

"Look, if he was just some ordinary guy…" he shrugged. "Is that really too much to ask for you to tell me how you meet _the _man behind Great Britain's most top secret alien hunting organization?"

She refrained from telling him exactly how unattractive jealous really was—or from pointing out that pretty obviously Torchwood wasn't all that super secret if him and his little conspiracy theory buddies knew about it. Still, she supposed she did owe him something. "I was sitting across the street from Big Ben sketching and this guy walked past… you have to admit, he is pretty hard to miss," she tried to smile. It wasn't reciprocal. "Anyway, I asked him if he had a couple of minutes to sit for me, so I could do a few sketches. I liked his face," she tried to explain. There was so much character in Jack's face… his dimples, the cleft in his chin…those eyes… "At first he thought I was just trying to pick him up," she admitted.

"Weren't you?"

"No!"

"But that's what happened," he accused.

"We just started talking. He told me he used to go out with this guy who was an artist—he said he'd introduce us if I wanted. Which is when I thought he was trying to pick me up," she admitted. "One thing just led to another and … we spent the weekend together. He invited me to Paris the following weekend—"

"And you went, just like that, with a total stranger?"

"We'd already spent one weekend together," she repeated. "Jack, London to Paris isn't a big deal."

"I'll bet he paid."

"I tried to pay my own way, but he wouldn't let me. We saw each other a few more times and then I came back home. End of story."

"You never saw him again?" he asked in an incredulous tone.

"We exchanged a couple of letters, but then… then he stopped writing or maybe I did, I don't remember. It didn't matter, it was never supposed to be anything more than what it was. I never even thought about him again until…" last night. The weird dream. Her painting. No wonder Hodgins was acting like a jealous seventh grader. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Jack, I love _you_. If you don't trust me—"

"I trust you," he told her. "What I'm trying to figure out is why you love me, Angela."

"What?"

"Ange… look at your ex husband. Look at Harkness. Then look at _me_."

"All I can see right now is you."

He sighed. She kissed him. He got it. It didn't matter who she'd been with before, she was with him now, but…

"Oops, sorry, kids," Harkness' voice cut through his thoughts. "Didn't mean to interrupt something…unless of course there's room for one more…?" he waggled his eyes eyebrows at them.

Angela rolled her eyes. "Don't you _ever_ give it a rest?" she pulled back from her husband, but kept one arm draped around his waist.

Jack chuckled, rocking back on his heels, his hands shoved into his pockets. "I can come back later if you want," he offered; it didn't take any special deductive reasoning skills to see he'd walked in on something, or to figure out that Angie's husband didn't like him much.

Just the same, Hodgins offered over the best amicable smile he could manage. "Nah, I should get back to work anyway. I've got a barrel full of bugs and slime to sift through." Smiling wasn't easy. Harkness was… he was Torchwood… _I'm just the bugs and slime guy. _But Angela had married _him_, not Captain Dimples over there. "Hey, just remember she's married, now," he shot the other what passed for a friendly grin as he headed towards the door.

Jack's chuckle warmed in a way that caught the other off guard again. "She's not the only one. Not that we're opposed to the occasional threesome… or foursome… Cardiff is a pretty nice town…" he grinned suggestively.

"Speaking of which," Angela cut him off. "You promised me pictures."

"Right here," Jack held up a small digital photo album. It was one of the latest gadgets—still hopelessly primitive as far as his fifty first century sensibilities were concerned, but it was better than it's predecessors at least.

"Here—let me see that," she took it from him and popped out the memory card. "Now… " she slid it into one of the slots on her computer and pressed a few buttons… several seconds later the image of Ianto's smiling face appeared on the three-D 'screen' (or cube) in the centre of the room.

"Wow, I'm impressed."

"So am I, he's cute! Love the red beret," she added with a smirk.

"Red _is_ his colour," Jack agreed. Then, "Ange, I mean it, though. This is some nice software—pretty impressive hardware, too."

Hodgins—who was still lingering at the threshold, despite his claims of needing to get back to work—gave him a look. The way the guy said 'software' and 'hardware' _sounded_ like a come on, but it was the technology he was leering at, not Angela.

She was laughing, "You're as bad as that other guy—Shane."

Jack snickered at some private thought. "He's probably trying to figure out how to talk me or Martha into getting him something like this."

"Well… I suppose I might let you talk me into sharing… it's my program."

"I have got to introduce you to Abby—one of the girls on my team."

"_Girls_, Jack?"

"Ok, fine, women," he amended, just to make her happy.

Angela shook her head at him and hit the enter key on her computer to bring up the next image… it was the same young man, but there were two children with him. The boy was unmistakably Jack's… the little girl could be either of theirs.

"My son Jason and our daughter, Seren," said Jack. The fondness he had for his family was impossible to miss.

Quietly, Hodgins took his leave; Harkness wasn't like Angela's ex-husband, or even the ex girlfriend he'd met. He'd moved on, he had his own life.

"You don't like being away from them, do you?" Angela asked quietly, although she'd noticed her husband slipping out; he'd flashed her just the tiniest smiles before he left…

To her question, Jack shrugged. "I guess I've gotten pretty used to being together. He works for me."

"You married someone who works for you?"

He shot over a mischievous grin, "Did I mention that he makes a Hell of a good cup of coffee?" he asked, instead of answering her question. "I couldn't let a talent like that get snapped up by somebody else, could I?"

"You're incorrigible, Jack. I hope you know that."

He laughed harder. "I think the next picture is from our wedding…"

* * *

Zack looked up when Hodgins came back into the lab. He was smiling, even as he dove into his work…

"You seem to be in a good mood," the younger man observed.

"Why not?"

"It no longer bothers you having Angela's ex boyfriend here?" he seemed genuinely perplexed.

"Nope. She married me, didn't she?" She chose the bug and slime guy over Captain Dimples. "Come on, let's see what we've got here…"

* * *

"I appreciate you letting me borrow the use of your facility," Bobby said to Camille Saroyan as she helped him get settled in to an unused section of the lab. Under the circumstances, she was being incredibly gracious about their presence—either that or she was happy that he'd asked for something away from the rest of the lab, just in case something went awry. Shane wasn't the only person who had read Torchwood's cautionary pamphlet, '_The toothpick that ate Henry'. _

"I didn't think we had a choice," Cam said, in response to his comment.

"Not really," he confirmed. "But it's nice when it isn't one of Jack's hostile take overs." Although he'd heard about Tim and Abby's 'hostile take over' of the NCIS lab last September… that had to have been satisfying.

"I take it he does this a lot?"

He shrugged. "We've got our own lab and most of Cardiff is pretty used to him by now."

"So that's a 'yes'."

Bobby chuckled. "With Jack it's usually more a friendly persuasion than a hostile take over, if you know what I mean."

"I got the impression he was quite the charmer. Just out of curiosity… I know there's a history with him and Angela… but…"

"Male, female, animal, vegetable or mineral," Bobby answered the question she didn't know quite how to ask. "Ianto's a little pickier. I'm pretty sure he draws the line at human life forms."

"You mean he—Harkness—aliens?"

"Not all aliens are hostile, Dr Saroyan. Some are quiet friendly, in fact."

"Oh my. Well. I should let you get to work. You're sure it's safe to examine that thing in here?"

"Should be."

She gave over an askance look.

"I'm not getting any radiation readings, just some weird energy signatures—we deal with weird energy signatures all the time," he assured her, not that it seemed to help any. He didn't actually blame the woman. "Look, I'm really, really certain that I'm not going to blow up your museum."

"That's comforting," she didn't sound the least bit comforted. "I ah… I'll be in my office if you need me for anything."

"Should I let Jack know you're interested?" he asked as she started to take her leave.

"What…oh. No. I was just making conversation, I'm not… really. I'm totally not…"

He chuckled softly to himself and let her escape with a modicum of dignity...


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

**26 April, 2010**

_"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same._  
_Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination."_

Don Williams Jr.

* * *

Ziva smiled when she saw the familiar figure entering the museum's little café. It was good to see someone she knew…had known. It helped to put things into perspective, she decided as she rose to greet him.

As glad as she was to see him, however, she wouldn't have called Gibbs if Jack hadn't made it an order; she wouldn't be taking a break to have a cup of coffee if it weren't for a direct order from the Captain, either. As much as her current boss was like her former boss, they were also very different. Gibbs had never allotted for 'persona time' in the middle of an investigation.

_But I suppose this is not really an investigation,_ she mused. Bobby was setting up somewhere in the lab area to run some tests, Shane was wandering around the forensic anthropology lab, gape-mouthed. Jack was playing catch-up with an old girlfriend, something she imagined he must have a lot of… there really wasn't anything that required the attention of Torchwood's liaison to UNIT. Jack was probably correct in his assumptions that the less they made their presence known, the better the 'mission' would go. Not that she believed for an instant that Jack was at all capable of doing anything incognito; subtle the man was not. She just hoped that the other one, John Hart, was staying out of trouble… perhaps she should have offered to babysit him. He clearly needed adult supervision… before her mind could make the leap towards Tony, Gibbs had reached her.

"Miss David," he greeted her with a warm smile.

"Mr Gibbs," she smiled back; they exchanged a warm hug hello. "Are you enjoying being a civilian?"

"It has it's moments. I get to come out and have coffee with a friend without worrying what my team is up to behind my back."

"While the…what is it, the cat is away, the rats will play?"

He chuckled. "Something like that, yeah. Can I buy you a refill?" he asked of her empty cup.

"I called you. I will buy."

He didn't argue, but rather just remarked that she probably made more than had, even when he was working.

"Torchwood does have its perks," Ziva commented over her shoulder; Gibbs was accompanying her up to the counter. He was also smirking in a way that made him wonder how much time he had really been spending around Jack lately; clearly his mind had gone to the same place the Captain's would have. "I did not mean…" she felt heat creeping into her cheeks.

He just chuckled. "Didn't think you did. But I wouldn't put it past him to try, either."

"Jack has been… he has been as close to a gentleman as I believe he is capable," she gave the Captain the best endorsement she could. After all, he was her boss.

They walked back to her table. It was tucked up in a corner; her seat put her back to the wall and gave her a good view of both doors as well as the entrance to the kitchen. Some habits died hard.

"You're looking good," Gibbs said then, as they sat down together. "'Fighting for the future of the human race' must agree with you."

She smiled. "You are a terrible liar, Jethro," she told him, using his first name for perhaps the first time ever.

She knew she didn't actually look 'good'. She was fit. Her health was excellent. But while she appreciated the training she had received from both Martha and Jack, the latter had been very exacting and she had gotten very little sleep the last few days. She supposed that was as much her fault as his. She wanted to be perfect… _no one's perfect, Ziva,_ Jack kept telling her. She kept refusing to believe him. However, the more she threw herself into her training, the less time and energy she had to think about other things.

"The work is… it is not what I expected it to be," she confided, "but I am finding it satisfying, yes," she said at last.

"You're here on an assignment?" asked Gibbs; it wasn't really a question.

"Yes. Jack is here, also, but he is…engaged."

"Not starting an international incident, I hope."

"I do not think so," she returned his smile and sipped her coffee. She was already missing Ianto's 'coffee magic.'

Jethro Gibbs gave her a long, appraising look. "How are you really?" he wanted to know.

"I still have nightmares of what happened in Somolia," she admitted; it was too hard to lie, not when he was looking at her like that, like he could see straight through her.

"Are you talking to anybody?"

"You mean like a 'shrink'? **No**."

"You can't keep stuff like that bottled up."

"I do not see the point of talking about it. It happened. I survived. I survived because you came after me," she added. "You and Jack…McGee. Tony." She drank her coffee. "You helped me even when I did not deserve it."

"You deserved it, Ziva. You still do."

She shrugged, looked away. "You were right about my father," she told him softly. "He is not a good man. He never was. I do not believe he ever will be."

"Probably not."

Several long moments ticked by in silence before she looked at him again. "I will be fine, Gibbs. I _am_ fine," she lied.

He gave her that look again, the one that told her they weren't done. Rather than pressing it, however, he asked if there was anything she wanted to ask him.

She knew at once what he was asking. Tony. "How is the boat coming?" she asked instead of broaching yet another painful subject.

He gave her another look, one she couldn't interpret, then took a sip of his coffee before telling her that he'd finished it.

"And the new one?" she asked. There was always a new one.

"Haven't started a new one."

Ziva blinked; that seemed… odd. More than odd, it was wrong. There was _always _a boat. A wooden sailboat, each identical to the ones that had preceded it—the ones that would follow it. He had completed two that she knew of, in the years she had known him…although perhaps it had been three. He used mainly hand tools crafting each piece, slowly, methodically.

"You have not started a new one?" she asked at last.

"Nope."

"Why not?"

He shrugged again. "I thought I might try something new." He drained his cup. "Thanks for the coffee. You should get back to work, make sure that boss of yours doesn't get himself into trouble."

Before she could protest (even if she knew he was right), he was on his feet…

"See you around, Miss David," he flashed an askance grin over his shoulder.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:**

Thank you again for the wonderful reviews and continued support of my work! Ok, so far, the Muses seem to be talking to me again (knock on wood!) My next goal is to update Stars before I head out of town next weekend...

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

**26 April, 2010**

_It's not the days, the hours, the minutes, nor the seconds that count.  
It's man's actions and reactions to them that make or break his life's journey._

* * *

Bobby looked up when he heard movement and the sound of soft-soled footsteps in the hall outside the small lab to which he'd been assigned. When he saw who was coming to check on him, he smiled. Temperance Brennan was carrying a blue lab coat.

"Come on in," he invited, when she hesitated on the room's threshold. Although he was putting together what Jack would likely consider "sensitive" equipment (i.e., it wasn't exactly twenty-first century standard), he doubted that anyone in the Jeffersonian's forensic anthropology department had any delusions about who Torchwood was and what they did for a living (or at the very least, they had some good ideas. He _worked_ for Torchwood and there were days when he didn't really know what they did. After all, how did one say that their job description included the phrases 'save the world on a regular basis' and not sound completely cocky… or like total nutter. Or like Jack, which was the same difference, really.)

Dr Brennan cleared her throat, looking as if she felt a little awkward. "I… thought you might like to borrow a lab coat," she extended the dark blue coat in his direction.

Bobby smirked, "Or you just wanted to see what I was up to," he accepted the coat from her hand and slid into it anyway, even though he'd given up wearing a lab coat some while ago. It was a part of a professional doctor's wardrobe, he knew, but he didn't really feel like a professional doctor so much anymore. Alien autopsy specialist, perhaps? It certainly sounded like something Ianto might come up with. He remembered a rather drunken night at the pub (even Jack had had a pint, although he'd stopped at one), just after an incident involving large blue slugs—swarms and swarms of large blue slugs—in which they'd all sat around trying to come up with clever job titles for one another. Ianto had come up with some of the best—and worst—of the lot. Mickey wasn't too far behind him when it came to cleverly horribly and horribly clever job titles.

At any rate, Bobby reckoned none of his patients, alive or dead, cared what he wore around the medical bay.

"I would never use a shallow ruse just to find out what you were doing," Brennan sounded legitimately insulted by his suggestion that she had done just that by offering to lend him a lab coat.

Bobby almost believed her, too… _but when you work around a guy like Jack Harkness…_ the medic just smiled. "You're welcome to stay," he invited.

She blinked in surprised. "Really?"

His smile warmed; he'd been right about why she'd brought him that coat. However, "You discovered this thing," he reminded the woman standing on the opposite side of the metal work table. "I figure that gives you the right to some answers. Besides, I'm sure we're going to have some questions about when and where you found it…" he ended in a shrug. The last was mostly thrown out there for when Jack came stomping into the lab demanding to know why a civilian was there. Their Captain was notoriously possessive of alien tech.

"What do you want to know?" Brennan's tone remained cool, matter of fact—utterly professional—but the Australian could see the twinkle of genuine curiosity in her sea-grey eyes, the way her posture relaxed just a little now that he'd invited her to not only stick around but make herself useful as well. He doubted that she was a woman who was used to being left out of anything, especially in her own lab.

"Probably everything," he answered her. "Hang on," he turned back to make the final adjustments on the video equipment he had set up around the artefact. Then, "You're not busy trying to catch a murderer or something?" he asked as an afterthought. He could handle his boss, but he wasn't sure about hers, he didn't know her well enough. When Jack told him he was being included on this little junket, Bobby had done his homework, read up on Brennan and her team. They were practically joined at the hip to that stuffy FBI agent he'd met earlier and consulted with him on all manner of criminal investigations, many of which turned out to be high profile if nothing else because of how bizarre they usually turned out to be. Although, really, why _would_ the FBI consult with a group like Brennan's team on if they didn't need them; he remembered the last time Jack had to deal with the FBI… Brennan was talking:

"I… the rest of my team can handle the evidence we have in the lab," she told him after only a moment's hesitation. Clearly here was where she wanted to be.

The medic smiled at her, nodded; a moment later, when he was satisfied with the equipment set up, he tapped a few keys on his laptop. "Abbs?" he said into the computer's webcam. "Are you there?"

"Reading you loud and clear!" The voice preceded the image, although that wasn't so much a technical issue as it was that the woman on the other end wasn't sitting in front of the camera at first. She slid into place, looking like she'd literally rolled her chair over. "Cool digs," she commented when she saw the images coming through on her end of his surroundings.

"Abby McGee, meet Temperance Brennan—Dr Brennan, this is Abby, our resident Forensic Goddess."

"And don't you forget it either," Abby's face grinned at him through the computer. "Nice to meet you Dr Brennan," she added in the other's direction.

Brennan nodded, "Likewise Ms McGee," she used 'ms' because although the woman on the other end of the camera was obviously three or four months pregnant, that was no guarantee that she was married. The only thing that Temperance could discern about her with any certainty, other than the pregnancy, was that she was clearly a member of the gothic subculture. "Torchwood appears to have a very relaxed policy regarding employees' self-expression," she observed, mostly trying to make what she thought would be polite conversation. Polite conversation, she'd been told, was something that put people at ease. It wasn't one of her stronger personal traits. "It must make working there…nice," she faltered a little.

On the screen, Abby frowned.

Even Bobby gave Brennan an askance look.

"Your attire and make up," the scientist explained, utterly needlessly, although she didn't realize that.

"You've got a problem with my make up?" Abby demanded. "You think because of the way I look—"

"Erm…." Bobby hit the mute quickly, effectively silencing his co-worker. "Abby's pregnant and a little touchy," he told Brennan apologetically. "Make that a lot touchy," He added; they couldn't hear Abby, but she was obviously yelling into the camera on her end.

"It's perfectly natural for a woman in her condition to be emotional," the other countered smoothly.

"No, I mean really, _really _touchy," he advised. "You should probably tread lightly unless you want to find a Weevil in your wardrobe."

"A….?"

"Never mind. Take it easy with her is all."

"I didn't mean… it's a perfectly logical conclusion that if your boss allows that level of self-expression in the work place, that he must not believe in enforcing a strict dress code," she seemed to be getting as flustered as Abby.

"You have _no_ idea," Bobby decided not to tell her about the game of naked hide and seek he'd inadvertently walked in on one night… He un-muted the sound.

"…swear you will find Janet in your wardrobe, Robert Chase!"

"Sorry, must've slipped," he lied.

Abby seethed.

"Bad connection?" he tried again. She didn't believe that one, either.

"I didn't intend to be offensive, Ms McGee," Temperance said to her. "I was merely making an observation. There's nothing wrong with your appearance—as long as your co-workers don't find it a distraction," she added, clearly not certain how all of her co-workers would feel about working side by side with a woman wearing a studded leather collar. (She gave her immediate team the credit to believe they would see past the other woman's outward appearance and judge her solely on her merit as a scientist… Dr Edison, on the other hand would no doubt take issue that level of what he would certainly consider lack of professionalism in the work place.)

In response to Brennan's statement, Bobby muttered that it his colleague's music they could all live without…

"What was that?" Abby demanded of him.

"Nothing, Abbs. Ready?" he asked.

"Almost," she turned her glare on Brennan. "We just need to get one thing straight first. My name is _not_ 'Ms McGee'," she said the words as if they tasted like sour milk in her mouth. "I'm Timmy's wife, not some appendage without a name of my own."

Brennan blinked. "I didn't mean… what would you like me to call you?" she asked, instead of launching into an explanation of how she was just following social custom, not trying to be offensive or to imply that Abby McGee was any less a woman simply because she was married, a fact she hadn't even known until that very instant.

And it looked for half a second as if Abby was contemplating exactly how she wanted to answer the question of how she could be addressed… but finally she stopped seething. "You can call me Abby, like everybody else." She gave over a look that clearly indicated she was expecting the courtesy of informality to be returned.

"I… Booth calls me Bones," Brennan said with an odd little half-smile. "I guess you could call me that…" almost nobody called her Temperance.

"Bones. I like it," Abby grinned. "Ok, Bobby, what do you have for me?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Once again, I'm sorry for the delay in posting! Lately it just seems like there's been so much going on (most of it good) that I haven't had much time to write, but I promise, I haven't forgotten my stories (or you, my wonderful readers!) **

**Thank you so much for sticking it out through the 'dry spell' – hopefully with things slowing back down again in the next couple of weeks I'll be back to it (probably not as prolifically as before, I've got a couple of new projects I'm tackling over the summer, not to mention the garden, but I would like to be able to give you more!)**

**And as always, thank you so very much for all the wonderful reviews and fave/alert listing me and my stories!**

**Special thanks to Kitsa, who has once again let me bounce around some ideas with her and for coming up with a brilliant notion for "what's next" (after this chapter…)**

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

**26 April, 2010**

_To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and undoubtedly inhabited._

Anne Buchanan & Debra Klingsporn

* * *

Abby McGee sat with her elbows perched at the edge of the cold metal table, her hands balled up into fists with her chin resting on her knuckles. She glared at the computer screen in front of her. On it, the box just sat there, inert, while the instruments set up around it collected data, data that was streaming across the Atlantic to her terminal.

The problem was that there wasn't enough data. In fact, there was hardly _any_ data. The box was made of stone—she could see that with her own two eyes (she supposed it wasn't necessarily stone, but it certainly looked like stone, never mind that everyone who had seen and touched it for themselves said it was made of stone.) It wasn't terrestrial—but she knew that already too, they all did. If it were terrestrial John Hart wouldn't have called Jack (well, he might have done, but Jack had confirmed the box was giving off low levels of radiation that most definitely were _not_ of a sort found anywhere on earth—trouble was that was all he knew. All _she_ knew, looking at the readings streaming through to her monitor, was that whatever the source of the radiation was something _inside _the box.)

Abby slammed her palms against the table pushing herself to her feet, sending her chair rolling half way across her lab. "I can't work like this!" she snapped into the web cam. "I can't do _anything_ from here! This is…it's impossible!" she declared, frustrated.

"Abby, you're pregnant," was Bobby's reply; his tone was infuriatingly calm. Patronizing.

(Then again, he was safely on the other side of the Atlantic… _but just wait until he gets back…_) "I know that!" she told him. "But I _can't _work like this! I need to be there."

On the other side of the Atlantic, Temperance 'Bones' Brennan gave over a quizzical look to the tall Australian doctor; she was clearly puzzled by the fact that Abby, who was obviously supposed to be an expert in… well, something, it was hard to say what exactly… but the point remained that if Abby McGee's input was vital to the investigation of the ossuary, she should be present for its examination.

"It's Torchwood policy," Bobby explained; the explanation only garnered further confusion from the American scientist. "She's pregnant," he said. "She's not allowed in the field."

"That seems sexist," Brennan observed. She was entirely certain that when she became pregnant, that while there might be some things she wouldn't be able to do, she wasn't about to let Booth or anyone else tell her she couldn't go into the field, at least not until she was much further along than the woman on the other end of the webcam.

"Thank you!" Abby told her, her tone making it clear that her opinion of the other American had just increased tenfold.

"It's not sexist at all," said a voice from the door; it belonged to Jack Harkness. He strode into the room as if he owned the place.

Brennan opened her mouth to challenge his statement, but Harkness spoke first, cutting her off.

"If one of the men on my team went and got himself pregnant, I wouldn't let him in the field, either."

"That's biologically impossible," the anthropologist protested. "The human male…"

This time it was Jack who was cut off (as he started to cut _her_ off) by a handsome young Welshman who had just come to deliver a cup of tea to Abby. "Don't get him started, Dr Brennan, for your own good," he pleaded into the monitor on the Cardiff side of the connection. "Jack did nothing but moan the entire time he was pregnant with our daughter. Ianto Jones Harkness, by the way," he added by way of introduction as he set a cup of chocolate-mint tea down next to his colleague's elbow; she pounced on it like Myfanway going for a chocolate bar, declaring him a prince amongst men… unlike some _other_ people she knew. The latter was directed at Jack and the remark came complete with a glower that would have wilted any mere mortal man.

The Captain scowled right back, although his dark look wasn't directed at Abby so much as at the man standing next to her in the suit… the perfectly tailored black three piece suit with the red shirt and red and black tie (Jack was convinced he'd worn that on purpose, just so he could taunt him with how good he looked in it, knowing he couldn't do anything about it from D.C.… not that he couldn't be back home with in a matter of seconds if he used the vortex manipulator… it was just a quick hop, really, he could be back before anybody even noticed he was gone)… Jack cleared his throat before he lost his ability to scowl. He wished he could get the time travel circuits working again; if he had done, he could so easily whisk his husband off for an afternoon… a week… _another whole year without aliens to worry about…_ and still be back in plenty of time to sort out whatever the box really was.

(On his end of the line, Ianto had no difficulty seeing the mirthful, wistful—bordering on lustful—twinkle in his partner's blue eyes and smirked.)

"Oh yeah?" Jack snarled at his glib expression. "I'll tell you what, the next time we decide to have a baby, _you _can be the one with the swollen ankles, back aches and morning sickness!"

Ianto just chuckled at him. "Not a chance."

They held one another's gaze for a moment more, oblivious to Dr Brennan's continued disbelief over male pregnancy. It was a silent exchange that spoke volumes inside the span of only a few heartbeats… then Jack's gaze raked over Brennan as he turned to face Bobby. "Now. You want to tell me what a civilian's doing in here?" he demanded of his medic.

The Australian shifted his weight from one foot to the other; the twinkle had completely gone from the Captain's blue eyes. Just the same, he spoke in a firm tone. "She found the artefact, Jack. She deserves to know what it is. Besides, I'd like to know more about where and how she came across the thing in the first place."

He gave over a look, as if he was having a hard time refuting the other's logic.

"He's got a point," said Ianto through the monitor.

"Not helping," the immortal muttered at him.

"I wasn't aware that helping was in my job description, _Sir_," he retorted without missing a beat. His lips curled up slightly on that word 'sir'… his smirk was brief, but it had the desired effect on the older man. Smiling smugly to himself, he turned his attention to the woman who had discovered the ossuary. "I've been going over the Jeffersonian's records—"

"What? How?" she wanted to know.

He merely smiled. "We're Torchwood, Ma'am. We can do that. As I was saying, I was going over the museum's records and you according to your report, you found the alien artefact in a mass grave in Chile. Do you have any idea where it came from originally?"

She shook her head. "How do you know it's alien?" she inquired.

"I can answer that," said Abby, sounding happy to be able to provide useful information. "Whatever's inside that box, it's emitting low level radiation—it's nothing to worry about!" she said quickly to the look of concern that crossed over the other woman's face. "It's totally harmless… well, you know, it wouldn't be harmless if there was more of it—like way more of it—but there isn't so it's ok. And anyway, the writing isn't terrestrial. I'm pretty sure it wasn't made with any Stone Age type tools, the lines are way too clean—although you should probably have Shane take a look at it, I'm not an archeologist, you know. Where is he?"

"Any idea what it is or where it came from, Abbs?" Jack asked her, ignoring her question in favour of his own… although he supposed he should probably track down the rest of his team sometime soon. Especially John. The last thing he wanted was his ex partner starting some sort of incident, particularly with an FBI agent running around. Abby was talking:

"I might be able to actually tell you something about it if I was there…" the argument died before it really got started. Clearly, Jack wasn't in a mood. She sat back down in her chair. "There's nothing in our database like it. I'm cross referencing with UNIT—don't give me that look, Jack, they might have something we don't," she told him in an indignant tone; to look at him, one would have thought she'd just suggested that somebody had genetically engineered flying pigs. "Bobby, how hard is that rock? I need you to take a sample and run it through a mass-speck if you can."

"Is that safe?" Brennan wanted to know.

"Relax, Doc," said Jack, "my people do this sort of thing all the time. We're the experts, remember?"

Ianto rolled his eyes.

Bobby's expression bore out his own dubiousness. However, "I should be able to get a sample," he said, more to Abby than Jack or Brennan. "But I'm going to need the use of some of your equipment," he added in the anthropologist's direction.

Brennan nodded her consent and stepped back as the Australian took a small scraping of stone from the bottom of the ossuary. He didn't don gloves or any other sort of protective gear, he just pulled a small pick and collection dish out of his case and after a quick inspection to determine the best place to deface the artefact he (easily it seemed) scratched a small sample of the bottom of the box… nothing happened. Brennan offered to show him the way back to the main area of her lab.

Jack lingered back, waiting until they were clear of the room; he leant in closer to the webcam. "So… how would you feel about a quick hop to D.C.?" he asked his husband.

"I believe it was your idea for me to stay at home," the Welshman reminded him.

"Maybe I changed my mind."

Ianto sniggered. "You're there on official Torchwood business, Cariad."

"What was it you said before… the world's always ending? Besides, it's probably just space junk."


	10. Chapter 10

**a/n:**

Sorry so long in between updates again… this is just kind of a fluffy chapter (which you all deserve after that last chapter of Short Stories!) Thank you again for sticking with this, and me, and for being patient while other projects take up so much of my time. But I really haven't abandoned Jack and Ianto (or Jack and Kam)—or you!

~Helen

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

**26 April, 2010**

When love is not madness, it is not love.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

* * *

Ianto's ears popped in response to the spatial vortex opening up practically on top of him. "You shouldn't be here," he said, not turning around. He didn't need to. Even though there were two people of his acquaintance who happened to own vortex manipulators, he would have known Jack's scent anywhere. And no matter how irritated he was at his partner for being here when he should be somewhere else, he couldn't help the effect the older man's scent had on him. It was little wonder he was rarely able stay mad at the immortal for long.

Just the same, he realized he should have known that Jack was up to something 'hinky' when he asked him to fetch a file the archives. Why exactly his boss had needed him to fax over their file on Carrionites ("right away") was beyond him… strong arms wrapped themselves around his waist, effectively halting his train of thought.

"Did ya miss me?" Jack all but purred in his ear.

"How could I have missed you?" Ianto forced his tone to be brisk. Neutral. Bordering on irritated; the latter wasn't much of a stretch. Jack really wasn't supposed to be here. "You've not even been gone a day."

"Don't care… it's the suit," he pulled him closer, grinding hard into him through their clothes, ravaging the back of his neck with kisses like a sex starved teenager as Ianto braced himself against the cabinet for support. "You wore it on purpose," Jack accused him as his hands went for his trouser zipper.

"Jack… _Cariad_…" he tried to pull away, but the other held him fast, unhooking his belt and sliding his hands into his pants, seeking out flesh, caressing his growing erection with a gentleness that was at odds with the way he was attacked the back of the younger man's neck. "You…shouldn't… be here…" Ianto told again—although he was long past the point of caring. After all, at the rate things were going, it would only be a matter of minutes before…

"You're right," Jack said suddenly.

The statement was enough to startle some blood back to the Welshman's brain. "What?"

His Captain's hand was already out of his pants, both arms encircling him firmly.

"Jack, don't you…" Ianto warned him, but it was already too late. His ears popped again and he felt the world going bright and hazy around him… "dare," he finished the sentence anyway, even though they were standing in a hotel room, presumably somewhere in Washington D.C. He hoped. "Jack—" he turned to glare at him.

"Bobby's got it under control," the immortal promised; he was already starting to unbutton his blue cotton shirt. He pulled it off and tossed it aside. His t-shirt followed quickly behind, landing unceremoniously on the floor next to the bed. "You're wearing too many clothes," he protested when it became obvious that the younger man wasn't following suit.

"This is totally irresponsible, even for you," he scolded in response to the ridiculous admonishment. "Worse than irresponsible, this is totally unacceptable! Are you even listening to me?" he wanted to know. Appearing in the Hub was one thing, but kidnapping him was quite another… well, he supposed, even in his ire, that 'kidnapping' was a bit strong, but the point remained the same. Jack was supposed to be leading a field mission, he was supposed to set a good example…

The older man's smirk and glib tone were infuriating. He wasn't listening at all. "The way I figure it, you've got two choices," he told him. "You can give in and we can enjoy ourselves… or you can sit here angry, leaving both of us miserable. What's it going to be?"

Ianto didn't answer, he just glowered—but he didn't stop his husband from undoing his tie. He let him unbutton his waistcoat… his shirt… He didn't hesitate to return the needy kiss when he felt Jack's lips on his, his tongue demanding entrance to his mouth. He didn't protest when he realized his shirt and waistcoat had joined his tie in a heap on the floor. And he couldn't help but feel a bit of a thrill at doing something so completely and unacceptably irresponsible, because really, Jack would never have left the rest of the team if he'd thought they needed him. It probably really was just space junk… Jack was only along to babysit John… the less he thought about his husband's ex partner the better… (and yet he couldn't help the absolutely huge thrill he felt at knowing Jack had come all the way to Cardiff for him, even though John Hart was right here and no doubt more than willing to help the immortal blow off a little sexual frustration… _but he doesn't what him…_ he smiled into the warm wet kiss his husband was giving him. The occasional three-some aside, Jack honestly didn't want anybody but him and he knew it. He was no longer the fall-back lover, the guy who would always be there; he wasn't even his Captain's first choice. He was his _only_ choice and knowing that felt so good because there had been so many times in the past when he'd been sure Jack would never love really love him, not the way he wanted him to. Not the way Ianto loved him.)

"This_ is_ irresponsible, Cariad," he repeated, anyway, determined to at least pretend he wanted the other to stop. "You're setting a bad example…what are the others going to think?"

"So write me up," he grinned, clearly knowing he'd won. He, shimmied out of his pants, kicking off his boots as he did, so that pants, socks and boots landed together with a thump on top of their shirts.

"Jack—"

"Bobby's got the situation here under control and the Rift is quiet," he said, kissing him again. He pushed the younger man down onto the bed… a moment later they were both completely naked and Jack was kissing, nuzzling and nipping his way down the his Welshman's lithe body, making him forget all about those muddy boots sitting on top of his clothes… there was probably a dry cleaners near by somewhere… assuming they were really…

"Just… tell me… we're in Washington, right?" he asked.

The immortal grinned up at him. "Would it make a difference if we were somewhere else?"

"Not really."

Jack smirked at the honesty of the answer. "We're in DC, Sweetheart," he assured him softly. "Now how about shutting up and letting me have my way with you?" he followed his words up with a long, slow kiss… he was nowhere near the other's mouth.

"Shutting up now, Sir," Ianto told him as he closed his eyes, giving up the last of his pretences of arguing. There wasn't any winning with Jack, anyway, he might as well enjoy it. Besides, Jack was right, the world was _always_ ending. They had such a finite amount of time together, at least when he compared his lifespan to his husband's; they might as well make the best of the moments they could steal away from the chaos—especially when Jack was doing such a good job of making his toes curl…

* * *

Angela looked up from her sketchpad when Brennan came into her work area looking like a woman on a mission. She set the pad down, carefully closing it; she supposed she should feel a little guiltier for spending her time on a sketch of a former lover when she should have been trying to help out with the investigation they were supposed to be working on—but at the moment there wasn't much for her to do. Hodgins and Zack were doing their thing (Angela had long ago realized the less she knew about what they were actually doing, the better. While both men were utterly brilliant, they had a propensity for hair-brained experiments in which it seemed, at least at times, that the real goal was to see just how big of a mess they could make.)

"Do you have a minute?" Brennan asked her.

"Sure. What is it?" she asked, only just noticing that while her best friend had walked in looking like a woman on a mission, at the moment her face was clouded over with uncharacteristic trepidation. "What's the matter?" she motioned for the other woman to come sit by her.

Brennan sat. It was another moment before she spoke. "I… was wondering if I could ask you about something," her tone was as hesitant as her expression.

"Anything, Sweetie."

"It's about… it's about Captain Harkness," she admitted.

Angela tried and failed to hide her grin. "He's got to you, hasn't he?"

"What? Oh! No," the other insisted, even as a slight blush over took her cheeks. "I mean… no of course not. No."

Angela continued to grin. "Don't sweat it, he has that affect on everybody, even some straight guys. Either that or he just knows who to flirt with," she added as an afterthought. Jack might just have a knack for finding the one bi-curious man in the room full of straight men.

Brennan looked more flustered than ever.

Angela's reassurance that it was ok didn't help.

"I… how well do you know the Captain?" she asked, as if trying to get the conversation back to its original topic.

The other woman's expression _really_ didn't help. Her smirk rivalled one of Jack's. "What do you want to know?"

"Angela, he's married!"

"And I know Jack. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he wouldn't do anything without his husband there, but he showed me pictures. I wouldn't mind getting into bed with those two."

"What about Hodgins?"

Angela shrugged. "I don't think Jack would mind…Harkness," she clarified. "Hodgins is about as straight as they come… but a girl can dream, right?"

"Angela!"

"I'm not saying I'm thinking about cheating, I'm just saying that if I was still single, I wouldn't kick Jack Harkness _or_ his husband out of bed for eating crackers, if you know what I mean."

Brennan blinked. Clearly she had no idea what she meant.

Angela sighed. "What did you want to ask me?" she asked; sometimes it was easier _not_ to try and explain colloquialisms to Temperance.

"Captain Harkness says things…not like that," she said quickly to the look creeping back over her friend's face. "He said… he said he'd been pregnant. Which I know is impossible, but it was the way he said it. Like he really believed it himself."

"And you want to know what I think?"

"It's biologically impossible for a man to be pregnant, Ange."

"Look, one thing I figured out about Jack a long ago is that when he says stuff like that he means it."

"But—"

"I don't know _how_ it's possible, I just know that when it comes to Jack, _everything_ is possible."


	11. Chapter 11

**a/n:**

Here's another (mostly) fluff-filled chapter that doesn't exactly advance the plotline… but it's either fluff or I write the next 'bittersweet' piece that I've got lodged in my head but am not ready to write yet… as always, reviews are love and keep the muses fed and happy! The next chapter does pick up the pace a bit, promise.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

**26 April, 2010**

"_I don't pretend to know what love is for everyone, but I can tell you what it is for me; love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person, love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room and smile at you.__"_

Author Unknown

* * *

Ianto rolled over and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. He was more than a little relieved to realize he'd only been asleep for a few minutes—just long enough for Jack to have gotten out of bed and, judging by the sound of water running in the bathroom, get into to the shower. He knew he shouldn't feel so good about doing something so completely irresponsible, but he smiled anyway. Jack was singing in the shower. The young Welshman didn't know the song—he didn't even know the language—but he loved the rich full sound of his partner's voice. Usually Jack only sang to the kids.

Ianto remembere the first time he'd chanced upon the immortal singing softly to Jason after he and Ella had moved in with them; the memory brought a surge of warmth. Of hurt. That first year had been so incredibly difficult, especially in the very beginning when he'd felt as if he was living in the shadow of the ghost of a man who hadn't even been born yet. Roan. Jack's first partner. Husband. He was a little fuzzy on the details, he just knew that they'd been together and that Jack had loved Roan enough to father a child with him—and that given the circumstances, it hadn't been an accidental pregnancy. That, at least, was still biologically impossible in the fifty-first century.

But regardless of what had happened—how, when—Jack had still walked out on Roan and Jason. Knowing that had made Ianto wonder if he would walk out on _him_ someday, too. After all, Jack would live forever, who was to say he wouldn't wake up one morning and realize he was bored, or that he felt stifled. Someday he might decide he didn't mean all of the wonderful things he'd promised the younger man, not any more. He might always remember him, but could he _really_ always love him?

Even Jack's offer of a child together hadn't eased his fear…not that it mattered. By the time Jack brought it up, Ianto knew that it didn't matter if—_when_—Jack left him. He was sure it was inevitable, he would get bored, he would leave, but it didn't matter. He would always love Captain Jack Harkness. He would wait for him. He would hope that someday he'd come back.

It hurt loving somebody that much; it hurt so much that sometimes Ianto questioned his own sanity. There were other people in the world, people who would love him… want him. Want only him. But all he wanted was Jack.

The night when he crept out of bed, however (he'd no idea what had woken him from a dead sleep), and found Jack sitting in Jason's room, crooning softly to him in some alien language, he realized he was seeing a side of his husband the immortal man kept hidden, even from him. He'd watched for a long while from the doorway, unobserved by either. Jason was clinging to his father, looking so small, so afraid… so lost out of his own time. The way Jack spoke to him… Ianto didn't have to understand the words to understand what he was telling his son. He loved him. Everything would be all right, he'd see, he just had to give it time.

In that moment Ianto decided that despite his fears—fears that were still overwhelming, even after his holiday away—he wanted to accept Jack's proposal of having a child together, because it was in that moment that he realized—he _**knew**_—that Jack was wrong. He was a **fantastic** father. He loved Jason. He always had done. And he would love their child just as fiercely. In that moment Ianto's fears began to fade; he began to really look at Jack, listen to him. Believe him. Believe _in_ him and everything he said in a way he'd been afraid to because believing that somebody could love him as much he knew Jack did was every bit as scary as loving somebody as much he loved his immortal, impetuous, impossible husband.

Ianto stretched and hauled himself from the comfort of the bed. Maybe if things stayed quiet in Cardiff, he could stick out the rest of the field mission… it sounded as if they had things well in hand. There wasn't much more to be done until they had the artefact back to the Hub, anyway. He padded softly towards the bathroom; Jack was still in the shower, but he stopped singing as soon the door creaked open. He stuck his head out from around the shower curtain displaying a coy smile. "Hope I didn't wake you."

"Nope," the Welshman answered simply, casting a wry little half grin in his husband's direction as he stepped into the shower behind him. He remembered with chagrin the first time Jack had caught _him_ singing in the shower… he supposed it was a silly thing to be 'in the closet' about, but he had been forced to admit that yes, he was a bit of a closet Doors fan. Jack hadn't seemed to mind.

The immortal turned and captured him up in another one of those demanding, almost needy, kisses, the kind that made Ianto's knees go weak while other parts stiffened to attention…

On the counter Jack's wrist strap beeped loudly for attention. There was only one person it could be; in fact, that was how this whole thing had started, with Jack and Ianto in the shower and Jack's wrist strap beeping. The Welshman only barely stifled a groan. "I swear if all he's doing is checking up on you…" he grumbled.

Jack grinned. "If he is, he's about to get an eyeful." He stepped out of the shower and picked up the beeping device. A moment later, a holograph image of the other Captain was all but standing on the counter.

"What—playing hookie?" John cajoled. Then Ianto stepped out of the shower. "Nice package, Eye Candy," he leered appreciatively.

The younger man grabbed a towel off the rack with such force that the entire stack of clean white towels fell to the floor, causing his husband's former partner to chuckle.

"He's got a lot of pent up frustration, _j'emora'et_," John said to Jack in a snide tone, "you must be losing your touch in your old age. Too bad have to interrupt—or that I'm not there to pick up your slack," he leered at Ianto again.

The immortal scowled.

"On the other hand, this isn't exactly a social call," John went on. "Unless of course you'd like me to assume command of your little band of Bikini Cops in your absence—"

"Cut the crap, John. What happened?"

"There's been," he hesitated, "an 'incident' with that little bit of 'space junk' we found."

Jack's scowl deepened, shifting from mere annoyance to genuine concern.

"Relax, Jackie, nobody's been hurt," the sudden soberness of his tone surprised (shocked) Jack's partner. His mood was short-lived however. "But you'd best get that sexy ass of yours back here. The nice scientist types…what did that FBI agent call them—oh yeah, 'squints'," he grinned. "Anyway, the 'squints' have some questions for you. Bring Eye Candy," he added with a wink. "We wouldn't want him to miss out on all the fun, now would we?" he taunted. He turned to Ianto. "I hope Jack's gotten 'round to tell you about the 'sights' here at the Jeffersonian. Especially this pretty little—oops—sorry boys, that's my cue—" he looked over his shoulder. "Wouldn't want to frighten the natives with fifty-first century technology—that's your job."

Before either Jack or Ianto could respond, the other man cut the transmission—it sounded like somebody was calling for him in the background, just before he disappeared from sight.

"Should I even ask?" Ianto inquired of his partner.

Jack swallowed hard; he looked uncomfortable with the entire conversation. He cast the younger man an apologetic look, clearly expecting to at least hear 'I told you so' out of him. However, all Ianto did was ask if he'd like him to accompany him back to the museum or not.

"Are you sure you want to?" it was no secret that he disliked John Hart.

"It sounds like it might actually be a real emergency, Jack."

He nodded. It did at that. As the younger man turned towards the other room to get himself dressed, Jack caught his arm. "Ianto, I—you were right. About me being irresponsible," he admitted. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dragged you off like that."

The soft smile his husband favoured him with came as a surprise. "The world _is_ always ending Jack—or at least it seems that way. We have to take what we can when we can. I'm not angry about that. Or about anything," he amended. "I love you. Besides, I'm certain that whatever happened, it's not actually life threatening. If it were, I doubt even John would have taken the time to call you. I don't like the man Cariad, but…I give him _some_ credit," he admitted begrudgingly. After the way John had helped them when Jack started haemorrhaging during his pregnancy, he had no choice but to acknowledge that although he and John would never,_** ever**_ be friends, that the other former Time Agent genuinely had Jack's best interest at heart—at least in as much as he was able to put anyone else's interests above his own. He leant in and pressed his lips to his partner's mouth before heading to get his clothes, hoping they were still presentable. "Just the same," he said over his shoulder as he began his inspection, "I'd like to know what he called you." His tone was carefully neutral.

Jack blinked. "Jackie? That's short for…"

"I know what it's short for—although technically it isn't short," he added; his tone was dry. He knew Jack's real name and could easily see someone like John coming up with 'Jackie' as a familiar form of it (not that _he_ ever would.) However, "I meant the other word, _j'emor-_something?" he said—whatever the language was, the accent was difficult. He turned back to the task at hand: his suit was unsullied by Jack's boots—the coat was a bit dusty, but that was easily remedied. And his husband was conspicuously silent as he got dressed himself. Ianto waited.

He didn't have long to wait, although it was obvious Jack was uncomfortable with the question he was being asked to answer. "Yeah. _J'emora'et._ It… doesn't really translate into English."

The other regarded him.

Jack squirmed.

"I know he's just trying to get under my skin. Under both our skin's," he handed the other man his shirt.

"Yeah. I erm… it's… difficult to translate." He dressed quickly, seemingly making a point of not looking his husband directly in the face, as if he could somehow keep him from figuring out what John had actually said to him.

Ianto nodded; he accepted him at his word. He had guessed for himself that _j'emora'et_ was some sort of endearment. Exactly what it meant didn't matter so much as the fact that he knew John was only trying to bait him. Bait them both. For his part, the Welshman refused to be baited. There had been a time…_ but that was then._

"I think there's something maybe I oughtta tell you about on our way back to the museum," his husband told him, then.

Ianto quirked an eyebrow in his direction. "Something about the 'sights' at the Jeffersonian, I take it?" his tone remained neutral.

The immortal cleared his throat. "Maybe I'd better start from the beginning—"

"I've the feeling we don't have time for 'from the beginning', Cariad," he used that word specifically—emphatically—as he helped him into his coat, smoothing the shoulders gently into place. _Presentable,_ he thought…then he smiled. _More than presentable._ Jack looked every bit the part of the dashing hero ready to go swanning into action. "Why don't you just tell me whatever it is you think you need to tell me and let me decide for myself how much of a history lesson I actually need," he suggested in an earnest tone.

Jack nodded. Hesitated. Then began, "I ran into this girl I used to know…"


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

**26 April, 2010**

"_Will you ever? I don't think you will ever fully understand how you've touched my life and made me who I am. I don't think you could ever know just how truly special you are, that even on the darkest nights you are my brightest star."_

Erica Jong

* * *

Jack watched his husband carefully; they'd just pulled up in behind the Jeffersonian, to the employee parking lot which was nearer the lab (besides, judging from the steady stream of people exiting the front doors at the clear behest of security, the rear entrance was a better option.) He told himself again that Ianto was right (his Welshman was almost always right): if the situation were _truly_ life threatening, John would have handled it and called him after it was dealt with. Security guards were only escorting the public off the premises as a precaution—it was what security guards did. If somebody were hurt… God, he didn't want to think about somebody being hurt… but if someone was, he was sure John wouldn't have been playing games with him. Them. He would have just told them what had happened.

So that had given him a chance to tell his husband about running into an old flame as they made the short drive from the hotel to the museum. It had given Jack time to watch the younger man's reaction… he wished Ianto _would_ react. He was just sitting there. Even after he stopped talking, Ianto was just sitting there. "Yan?" he finally asked (the silence hadn't lasted long. Jack couldn't take the pins and needles feeling it gave him when his partner refused to speak to him.)

"I don't really know what you want me to say, Jack," his tone was tepid.

The older man swallowed.

"Cariad—this is hardly the first time I'll have met some old lover. All things considered, I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of it."

The Captain blinked.

Ianto turned to face him. "I stopped being jealous of your former lovers a long time ago. I thought you knew that."

"I…" he hadn't known it, not really. Not fully. "I guess I just… sometimes… I don't know why you put up with so much, Sweetheart," he said finally. No one else would have… Roan. Maybe Roan. Yeah. He would have done—he had done. Would do… timey wimey, topsy turvey… But Lucia wouldn't have put up with what Ianto did, not even when they were at their best together. Estelle wouldn't have, either. Not even Laura would have tolerated what he put his Welshman through and he knew it. She had been willing to put up with a lot, but she would have chucked him out on his ear…

His husband's smile was reassuring, however. Ianto wasn't chucking him out, he just didn't understand why. "That's easy," the younger man told him, seeming to understand exactly what he was thinking. He always seemed to understand. "I love you. What's more, I trust you, Jack. With all of my heart and soul, I trust you. I believe in you. Now," he carried on in a more brisk tone, "let's go and save the world one more time—and then you can buy me lunch."

"It's a date," he promised.

"It's the least you owe me for bloody kidnapping me from the Hub like you did," the other answered in grumbling tone. His eyes, however, held nothing but love—warmth.

Jack held his gaze for a moment longer… then he slid out of the SUV, his expression all business. Ianto fell into stride behind him, just like always. The world was always ending, but somehow they always managed to stop it.

…

"Dr Saroyan, you are not helping," Ziva pressed the other woman. She understood Camille Saroyan's concern—her anger—but her attitude was not at all helpful, even if her accusations were indeed correct. They _had_ come into her facility and taken over with the assurance that they knew what they were doing and Jack _had_ inexplicably vanished without a word to anyone. Or, perhaps he had told Bobby Chase where he was going and why; Chase was the next highest ranking member of the team and therefore he _should_ be in command in Jack's absence. The Australian, however, was incapacitated, unconscious on the floor of the imaging lab along with Angela Hodgins. The artefact sat, open, on the work table, looking non-threatening. Inert. Not that anyone was going near it to test the theory.

With Bobby out cold, that left her, Shane Bruster—knowledgeable yes, but clearly not competent as a leader—and Captain John Hart, a man whose standing with Torchwood she did not fully understand (and who was not even at the room at the moment anyway, as he too had vanished nearly as soon as it had become obvious that there was a problem with the artefact). That left her with no choice but to assume command of the situation and try to get things under control before Captain Harkness returned. He had said, had he not, that he wanted to see how she handled the pressure of being in the field. Perhaps he had made himself absent to test her—although she doubted he had foreseen anything untoward happening in his absence. He would not have left his team if he had anticipated an… 'incident,' of that she was certain.

It was only after Harkness left them that Bobby–and presumably Abby—had decided to open the artefact. However, the connection with Abby had been lost along with half the power in the Jeffersonian's forensic anthropology lab leaving Ziva with no one to rely on but herself. Usually that was not an uncomfortable feeling, she was had been trained for self-reliance by Mossad. She had not, however, been trained to deal with irate scientists and alien artefacts and she did not appreciate that she had been left out of the decision making process. Even if Bobby was in charge in Jack's absence, she was supposed to be learning how Torchwood operated in the field, not babysitting—but that was exactly what Jack had left her to do. His last instruction to her, when she'd come back from having a cup of coffee with Gibbs, was to keep an eye on John Hart. (He had not mentioned that he was leaving.) It was an echo of the order Ianto had given her (covertly, behind Jack's back) before she left Cardiff.

When the alarms went off signalling something had gone wrong somewhere in the building (she could only assume it was the lab—after all, with the presence of alien technology, it was the most logical conclusion), she had been attempting to keep Hart from further antagonizing the FBI agent, Seeley Booth. Something about the American had drawn Hart's attention in a major way. (Now Hart was missing again, as was Booth, but Ziva didn't have the time to worry about it.)

She turned her attention back to Camille Saroyan. "You are a medical doctor, yes?"

"A medical _examiner_…"

"That is close enough."

Saroyan gave her a disbelieving look—Jack Hodgins' expression was no better. He was kneeling over his unconscious wife, concern and anger playing for dominance on his face.

"The first thing to do in a medical emergency is to assess the condition of the…patients," said Ziva; her hesitation had nothing to do with her occasional difficulty with the subtleties of the English language. She was seriously out of her depth and she knew it—but she would not let it show.

"We need to get them to a hospital," said Brennan, before Saroyan or Hodgins could say the same.

"No," she retorted. Ziva was certain Jack would say 'no' to taking either Bobby or Angela off the premises. If they were in Cardiff, perhaps, but…no, she was sure he would want to keep the situation as contained as possible. Besides, it did not appear as if either Angela Bobby were in distress, they were simply unconscious—although she suspected that Chase would have a large moose egg from where he'd cracked his head on the floor when he fell. "We do not know what will happen if we try to move them," she tried to sound more confident than she felt.

"She's right," Shane stepped up behind the Israeli. "We can't move them until we know what's really happened here."

"We wouldn't be worrying about what's happened here if you people—"

"Now, now, Dr Saroyan," Hart crooned; he was being escorted back in by Booth. "Not to worry, though, cavalry's on its way. In the meantime, I can tell you that they're just fine. I did check for vitals, I'm not a first year rookie, you know," he levelled his gaze at Ziva. She glared back.

Saroyan looked to Booth for some sort of explanation.

"I found him hiding out in the—"

"I was not hiding!" John protested the FBI agent's assessment of his actions. "I had—personal business."

"Where's Harkness?" Saroyan wanted to know. She wasn't the only person in the room who looked like they wanted to know that.

John just smirked. "He had a little—well, maybe not so little—personal business to take care of."

Ziva and Shane exchanged worried glances; Saroyan just looked irritated. (Zack Addy stood quietly and out of the way, knowing he was out of his depth and not afraid to admit it.)

"Dr Saroyan, please," said Ziva. "Perhaps if we just concentrate on what we do know—on what we can do—"

"All I know is that one of my people is…" she looked down at Angela again, not sure how describe what she was seeing. Like Chase, Angela was lying there, unconscious, eyes moving rapidly behind their lids as if she was caught in a dream from which she wouldn't (couldn't) wake up—from which they couldn't wake her. Every piece of equipment in the imaging lab was fried, including the laptop that had been their only connection to Torchwood's people in Cardiff. Whatever had knocked out the lab had hit the surrounding area as well, triggering an emergency lockdown (an emergency lockdown that Hart was somehow able to walk in and out of.)

According to Brennan she and Angela had been the first to arrive on the scene when the alarms went off. They found Chase already unconscious and the ossuary open. Then Angela had looked into the box herself…

"_There was… a light…" Brennan's description of events was laboured, as if she simply didn't have the words to express what she'd seen—Temperance Brennan was not a woman who became lost for words easily. "She seemed… stunned. Then she fell and I caught her."_ Dr Chase hadn't been so lucky, although it didn't appear as if the trauma had been great—but with _any_ head trauma… "We need to get them to a hospital, Ms David. It isn't up for debate. This is my lab—"

"And my operation," said a new voice from the door. "Sorry, Doc, but these are my people," it didn't escape anyone's notice the way Jack's gaze included Angela as well—Hodgins met his gaze.

"She's _not _one of your people," he began in an angry tone.

Brennan was the only person to immediately notice the man standing just behind Jack Harkness, a man who had barely an hour ago, been in Wales…


	13. Chapter 13

**a/n:**

instead of plotting my husband's gruesome demise, I'm going to write this morning—so you guys get the benefits of his bone-headedly leaving the bleeping spigot on outside for the last FOUR DAYS. (Sorry, gotta rant at somebody and he's at work.) However, if you hear a story on the news about a crazy housewife in Michigan having strangled her husband with the garden hose over the gazillion dollar water bill… well, just look for my next post from Attica! [that's a major prison here in the States, although it's not in Michigan, but I figured it was probably pretty well known.]

..

And just as a note, 'goose egg' in the last chapter wasn't a typo. That was a 'Ziva-ism'. ;-)

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**

**26 April, 2010**

_"To be trusted is a greater complement than to be loved."_

George MacDonald

* * *

Jack Harkness answered Jack Hodgins' glare with an angry glower of his own, creating a tension that could have been sliced through with a knife. The exchange would have lasted longer, but for being interrupted the soft clearing of a lovely Welsh throat just behind Jack Harkness' left ear. "This hardly seems the time, Sir," he said, so quietly that only Harkness heard him.

Reluctantly, the immortal relented, breaking off eye contact with Hodgins and re-focusing his attention first on Camille Saroyan, then on Ziva and John. "What happened?" He demanded, mostly of his people. "And why the Hell is it so dark in here?" he added with a deepening scowl, as if just noticing how dark the room was. Without waiting for an answer, he flipped open his wrist strap, hitting several buttons to answer that last question for himself. He didn't like what he was seeing. He turned to John, the only person in the room possessing the same technology as him—the only person likely to have any real answers.

"It looks like our little bit of space junk wasn't space junk after all," the other told him, sliding up close, clearly appreciative of the way the adrenaline pumping through the immortal's veins only served to intensify his natural scent. There were pheromones and then there were pheromones. And _then_ there was the man who was currently calling himself Captain Jack Harkness.

A man who was currently completely ignoring his less than subtle attempts at flirting. John cast a quick glance in the direction of his former lover's partner. The Welshman didn't seem to notice. Instead, he pushed past his husband (John didn't catch the way Jack turned slightly to let him pass easily, even though some part of his mind always picked up on how synchronous those two were). Ianto passed him on the _other_ side, however, so that he didn't come between the two Captains… _interesting… _John slid in closer still to look at the readings on Jack's wrist strap. "I already did that, by the way," he told him.

"I like to check things out for myself."

John turned his gaze towards Ianto, his expression blatantly lascivious. "I don't blame you there…wouldn't mind doing a little checking of my own."

Jack's gaze stopped him cold. John cleared his throat backed off before relaying more relevant information about the situation, including the radiation levels in the room, which were within perfectly tolerable levels… "At least… assuming they have the same tolerance for radiation in this century…?" he asked in a speculative tone. "Because if not…"

"Now you're telling me we've been exposed to alien radiation?" Saroyan demanded angrily.

"Relax, Doc, it's fine," Jack told her, flipping his wrist strap shut again. He turned to his great-grandson. "Shane, get the med kit. Everybody in this room gets a shot of…the blue vile," he said, rather than calling a drug that was several centuries ahead of its time by name. He knew he was breaking the rules by having it, but… he ignored the look John was giving him because even if John couldn't be positive about what was in 'the blue vile', he had to have an idea. He knew John didn't care about breaking the rules, it was just _him_ breaking the rules that made his former partner look so surprised.

Jack shifted his gaze towards Shane, who also understood exactly what he was being asked to administer and what it meant about what they'd been exposed to.

"I said it was nothing to worry about," he told his great-grandson. "Just… get the med kit," he seemed to be trying, but failing, not to snap. Time was a factor.

Shane looked at a loss. "How much should I…?"

"Twenty five cc's should do it. Five for him," he nodded at John. "Just a precaution," he told him. "Wouldn't want anything dropping off that you're especially attached to." (John smirked. Ianto rolled his eyes). "Thirty five for those two," Jack continued, speaking of Bobby and Angela—only those who knew the Captain well recognized the look of deep concern etched on face… between his brows. To the others, he just looked angry. "Check the levels in the rest of the lab, make sure nobody else was hit with a lethal dose—"

"Lethal?" several voices came at him at once.

"I said don't worry so don't worry," Jack didn't bother trying not to snap that time. "We've got this under control."

"If this is your idea of 'under control', Captain," Saroyan sniped at him, "I'd hate to see what happens when it's _not _under control!"

"I've _always_ got the situation under control," he lied to her, his tone cold. He turned back to Shane, his voice softening. "I know you're not a medic, but right now that's what I need you to be."

Shane nodded, standing just a little straighter, looking just a little less frightened as he left to get the med kit from the room where Bobby had set up his gear initially.

Ianto moved to stand next to Ziva. "What happened?" he asked her quietly, while Jack was talking to Shane. He was far calmer seeming than the Captain had been when he asked the same question just a few moments prior.

"I—I am sorry," she stammered anyway. "I was not here when it happened. I should have been here," she should have been with her team. Even though Jack had told her to keep an eye on John Hart, Gibbs had taught her the value of being a part of a team. The alien artefact was more important, more dangerous… trying to say that Jack had ordered her somewhere else was an excuse. She had neglected her primary duty.

"It's all right," Ianto told her. There was neither anger nor recrimination in his expression or his voice. "What happened here _isn't_ your fault, Ziva. This is your first field assignment, remember?"

"I worked in the field with Martha—"

"Martha isn't Jack," he reminded her. "Now. Who was here?"

She nodded at Brennan.

The anthropologist, who had been paying almost as much attention to the young Welshman as she had been to Harkness, stepped towards them before she was beckoned.

"What happened?" he asked her.

"After…" she glanced at Chase again. "Dr Chase was already on the ground when Angela and I came in. Are they really going to be all right?" she wanted to know. "Were we exposed to a lethal dose of…alien… radiation?" she wouldn't put it past Harkness to lie—she'd seen Booth lie to get people to do what he wanted them to do.

"I trust Jack," Ianto answered her simply. "He's never let me—any of us—down. If he says we'll be fine, I believe him." Although it looked as if things were getting ugly on his partner's side of the room…

"I am not going to let you just 'inject' my people," Camille Saroyan was telling him. "We deserve to know what's going on here-"

"It _wasn't _a request," Jack cut her off in a tone that brooked no room for refusal or even debate.

Saroyan held her ground. "This is my lab and my people, Captain. I want trained medical personnel—"

"Either you take the shot voluntarily or I sedate you and _then_ have my people inject you. Your choice. Either way, nobody's leaving the building until I say so—and nobody's dying, _not_ today." He glanced at Angela and Bobby—Ianto— praying he could keep that promise. It wasn't so much his partner, the others, he was worried about. Bobby routinely kept a full stock of anti-radiation drugs in his kit, but Angela… Bobby… _nobody's dying,__** not**__ today,_ he repeated to himself.

"You don't have the authority to hold us here," Hodgins protested, his outrage evident. (Shane was back in the room, preparing the first injection, seemingly trying very hard to ignore the fresh tension that had gripped the lab.) "We have rights, here, Harkness. You can't come waltzing into this country and—"

"Torchwood," Jack cut him off. "Consider your civil liberties temporarily suspended. I will shoot you if I have to, to make my point," he added, his hand was already resting on Wellington on his hip.

Hodgins was on his feet, advancing on the Captain. "Who do you people think you are? We're American citizens—"

"Hodgins, please," Brennan said to her colleague before he got the chance to test whether or not Harkness was serious about shooting him—she was pretty sure he was. "Booth, don't," she added, when she noticed her partner going for his gun as well. (She didn't see John Hart moving his hand slowly inside his jacket, reaching for his own firearm, just in case a fight broke out). "Everybody, just… just stop," she said, stepping into the middle of the room. "Cam, I know Angela trusts Captain Harkness. I know she would want him to do whatever he believes is best for her—for all of us—in this situation."

"Brennan—"

Booth didn't appear any more convinced than Saroyan.

"Angela told me she had faith in Jack Harkness and that…that with Jack everything was possible," she favoured the Captain with warm look—although when she glanced at his husband, it was clear that regardless of Angela's beliefs, _she_ still had a lot of questions. Just the same, she rolled up her sleeve and let Shane Bruster stick the needle in her arm.

"Sorry," he apologized when she winced. "I'm really not a medic."

"I've had worse," she assured him. "What can I do to help?"

"You want to give me a hand with these?" he asked hopefully, grateful for the unexpected ally amongst the Jeffersonian's staff. For a minute there it had looked like Jack really might start shooting people.

"Of course," Brennan readily agreed to help with the injections. "Here, why don't you watch me," she added, taking a fresh syringe and filling it to the 25cc mark from the vile he handed her. "Zack?" she looked to her assistant.

"I hate needles," he grumbled at her, but rolled up his sleeve anyway...

Jack Harkness stepped towards his partner. "Thanks," he whispered softly into his Welshman's ear.

"I didn't do a thing, Sir," the other told him. "So what do we do now?" he asked before Jack could say more.

"First get your self injected," he told him. "Then, see if you can get Abby back on the line," he told him. "I need to know what really happened here."

He nodded and got himself a shot of the radiation antidote, (Shane's first aid skills were about on par with Jack's and Dr Brennan had her hands full getting her people to cooperate.)

"Jack, I…" Ziva began as Ianto went to work on the rest of it, first testing the network and then going to look for a computer or phone that was far enough removed from the artefact to have not been fried.

Jack waved the Israeli's apology aside. "You did fine, Ziva. I… if anyone's to blame here, it's me," he admitted, looking guilty for the first time since his arrival on the scene.

"Even the best leaders make mistakes," she told him. "But it is only the truly great ones who admit to it."

He flashed a tight lipped smile in her direction and then turned back to the rest of them, his expression hard again. "John, shut that thing," he said to the other Captain.

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"Don't look inside," Brennan cautioned him. "When Angela and I got here—she looked inside. That's when she collapsed."

Jack nodded.

More than a little begrudgingly the other former Time Agent crept up behind the box and slapped the lid shut. Other than making a dull stony clunk, nothing happened. Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.

"Let's get Ange and Bobby somewhere more comfortable," suggested Jack.

"Is that safe?" Saroyan wanted to know.

"I don't see why not—Shane?"

"I'm…" but he hesitated, then straightened his shoulders again before meeting Jack's gaze. "Yeah, yeah, it should be. It does'na look like either of 'ems broken anything," he added. After he'd sorted Brennan with the injections—he didn't blame her people for not trusting him—he'd gotten one of scanners from the medic's kit and run a quick check on Bobby and Angela (and on the room, like Jack had asked. The radiation levels weren't quite at lethal…yet. They seemed to be going down now that the box was shut.) However, assuming he was reading the medical scan correctly Bobby and Angela were both mostly fine, just unconscious—just the same, he was grateful when Brennan took a quick look at the scanner's screen over his shoulder, nodding her agreement that his assessment was accurate. There didn't seem to be any reason not to move them.

"That's an incredible piece of equipment," Brennan added appreciatively. "I've never seen anything like it," she looked to Harkness as if expecting an explanation.

He gave over a non-committal shrug and turned to deal the business of getting Angela and Bobby shifted to somewhere comfortable—somewhere away from the artefact. Hopefully moving them was less risky than moving it.

Booth slid in close to Brennan. "You really trust this guy?" he wondered.

"I don't see that we have any other option. I'm not afraid to admit when something is beyond my ability to comprehend, Booth. Aliens… up until a few years ago I didn't even believe in aliens. I mean… in theory, of course… it would be hubris to believe that we're alone in the vastness of the universe, but…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he halted her speech before she could really get going; it wasn't the first time they'd discussed the possibility—reality—of extraterrestrial life. The Daleks had proven the nut-jobs in tinfoil hats were right. Aliens existed and they weren't ET, just trying to phone home. Aliens were dangerous. "But do you really trust this guy with Angela's life?" he wanted to know.

"She trusts him. That's good enough for me."

….

By the time they had Angela and Bobby settled into the relative comfort of a couple of couches outside the imaging lab, Ianto was back to report that he'd been able to get through to the Hub. They were unaffected by whatever had happened at the Jeffersonian; Abby was faxing over everything she had. "Which isn't much," the Welshman cautioned his partner. "The imaging equipment here couldn't penetrate the artefact. Abby doubts that anything we've got back home could've gotten through it, either. She has no idea what the stone is made of and there's nothing in our database that matches either the symbols or the radiation coming from inside the box."

Jack nodded. "Thanks. I…" he hesitated. He was so sorry he'd dragged Ianto into this. He never would have brought him here if he'd known… if he'd even suspected… he never would have left the others if he'd thought they were in any danger.

"No worries, Jack," the other's tone was soft. "Let me go check on that fax."

"Thanks. I… I don't know what I'd do without you."

The younger man smiled. "That's easy. You'd leave your boots in the middle of the floor, coffee cups strewn everywhere and never get any paperwork done—which was pretty much the state of affairs when I took over. Oh yeah, and the archives—" he moaned.

"Go," Jack ordered, "before I write you up for insubordination. Again." His tone only made his (gorgeous) Welshman snigger all the more. The immortal waited until he was gone from view before glancing around the room, looking for… "Dr Brennan!" he called her over. "I need to know everything you do about that thing," he motioned towards the other room, the artefact.

"Me? You're the experts on alien technology. I only know… bones. Anthropology," she told him.

"Yeah, but you found the thing."

"I…" she looked momentarily at a loss, clearly unsure what insight she could have; her gaze shifted from him towards Angela again. To Bobby Chase. They were still in the grips of what appeared to be a dream-state, eyes moving rapidly behind their lids. Neither seemed in pain or distress, but neither was responding to any outside stimuli. She turned to Jack Harkness again. "I found the artefact in an unmarked mass grave in South America," she told him. "I was called in by the local government to help identify the bodies—about sixty of them. Men, women and children. The grave was discovered during routine excavation work—the government was putting in a new bridge over the Sanopalion Ravine," she explained. "There were no reports of that many missing persons on record, although in some places…" she shrugged. Harkness gave the impression of a man who understood the harsh realities of life. "The victims had only been dead sixty or seventy years, Captain. I never made any connection to the artefact and what had happened there. I presumed it must have belonged to one of the victims and was buried with him. There were other objects in the grave. It seemed a reasonable hypothesis," she said, although clearly she doubted that now.

"How did they die?"

"I…my report was inconclusive. The skeletons were fragmented, but it appeared as if all of the trauma to the bones was post-mortem. There's been a lot of seismic activity in that region in the last decade. I was just there to assemble and identify the remains."

"Did you identify them?"

"Yes. They were all members of a local tribe. The Tribal Council wasn't interested in cause of death. They gave me the ossuary as a token of their thanks. Once the government cleared it, I was able to bring it back to the Jeffersonian."

"Why did you pull it from the exhibit?" Ianto queried. Neither Brennan nor Jack had noticed him slip up next to them, at least not until he spoke. He handed over a cup of coffee to the Captain. "I found the coffee station," he explained. "Thought you might need a cup."

"Have I told you recently how wonderful you are?"

"Not really, no," the younger man smiled over at him. "But I'll take what I can get when I can get it. _Sir_."

Jack chuckled softly into his coffee cup. Only his Welshman could make him smile when the world was going to Hell in a hand-basket around him.

Brennan only barely picked up on the exchange, although it would have made most people blush, despite the genuinely subdued nature of the innuendo.

"The ossuary?" Ianto prompted after a moment.

"I wanted to compare the inscriptions on it to some symbols a colleague sent me from a dig in the Middle East."

"Do you happen to have those handy?" Jack asked her.

She nodded. "In my office." She looked at Ianto again. "You were in Wales less than two hours ago," she told him. Although it was a statement, she was clearly still perplexed.

The Welshman merely nodded. "All things considered, it's just as well I'm here now. He functions much better with coffee," he added, by way of explanation. "Can I get you a cup?"


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:**

**First: A HUGE THANK YOU for all the reviews! Talk about blowing me away :) You guys are amazing. I'm really glad you're enjoying this... **the reviews have definitely kept the Muses happy and dancing!

...

The next two chapters will make more sense to those of you who are familiar with Bones and House (although hopefully I've explained it well enough for those of you who aren't.)

The last couple of seasons of Bones in particular have been a bit… well, the producers did some things a couple of seasons back that just made no sense (it was during the writers' strike, so in all fairness, they _**were**_ scrambling.) This story is as much about my fixing that as it is about anything else.

Likewise, on House, some screwed up things happened. All the while we were watching the last season, my husband (who is still alive even after the hose incident) and I were both saying 'he should have gone to Cardiff!'

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen**

**26 April, 2010**

* * *

"_If only.  
Those must be the saddest two words in all the world."_

Mercedes Lackey

* * *

Shane found Jack in Brennan's office; the Captain was scowling over the sheet of paper he was looking at. The younger man cleared his throat; the other all but glared when he looked up.

"Erm… sorry," Shane apologized.

Jack's expression softened immediately. "You need something?" he asked.

"I erm… that is… I need to give you a shot," he held up the syringe, looking very unsure of himself. Jack had said to give everyone in the room the anti-radiation drugs, but he himself had managed to escape being injected.

"I'm fine," he told the younger man. "Start taking blood samples, make sure everybody's really ok."

"I already have done. Everyone's good, Jack. But you never got a shot of the antidote."

"I said I'm fine. Here, take a look at these," he thrust the paperwork at the other man.

He hesitated… but… Jack was still holding the sheets of paper out to him, looking at him expectantly. He set aside the (still-capped) syringe and took the papers. The images were of poor quality, but… "What…?" They symbols in the photographs were nearly identical to the symbols on the alien artefact. "Where did you get these?" he asked Dr Brennan.

"A colleague of mine was on a dig near Qazvin, in Iran. He asked me to have a look at them. They're not like anything he'd ever seen before—certainly not like anything else anyone has found in the Middle East."

The young archaeologist's eyes went wide when she named the location of the dig. "I was with a team that got booted out of Iran after… well," he shrugged, casting a quick, guilty seeming look, in Jack's direction, as if he wasn't sure how much he should say—if he should say anything. But he had to say something. "Stuff happened," he finished lamely. "It wasn't our fault, it was just… political."

"Last September," Jack clarified for Brennan's sake. She was quick to pick up on Shane's expression and flash him a questioning look.

"The… incident in London?" she queried, seeking further clarification, but clearly not sure what to call it.

Despite the video that had been leaked and the resignations that had been swiftly tendered in the UK and other countries before they could be demanded, the world's governments were still doing everything they could to keep a lid on what had happened that week. Nobody wanted to admit that it was _their_ fault. The blame had largely been shifted onto former Prime Minister Brian Green and his cabinet.

"Yeah," Jack answered Brennan's question. "After the 'incident' in London," the chill in his tone filled the room. Everything they lost. Everything they might have lost. Ten percent of the world's children… Steven. If he hadn't been able to come up with some other way… The world might blame Green, but if he'd stood up to the 456 back in the 60's… _it wasn't your fault…_ Sara. Ianto. Abby. His whole team. He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to his great grandson. "Opinions?" he asked, his tone brisk, his face shifting into a mask of cool professionalism.

"I'd have to see the actual inscriptions to make a real comparison, Jack," the other told him. The images Brennan's colleague had sent her were horribly grainy. "But… they look the same," the idea clearly didn't sit any more comfortably with him than they did with the Captain.

However, for his part, Jack merely nodded. "You mind if I make a copy of these?" he said to Brennan. It wasn't exactly a question—he was going to copy the images whether she agreed or not, but so far she'd been cooperative. He only hoped…

She nodded her consent, although she looked uneasy about it. Given the general political environment in the Middle East, he didn't blame her; he got the impression that her friend had probably bent a few rules when he sent her the images.

"Thanks, Doc," he flashed a genuine smile. "Shane—get those to Ianto, ask him to fax a copy directly to Abbs back home."

"Yeah. Sure," he looked dubious, but didn't complain.

"Have him send a copy to Martha," he added, picking up on the younger man's hesitation. He wasn't keeping his London team out of the loop, it was just that Abby was the best at… well, at everything.

Brennan waited until Shane had left them to remind the Captain that he hadn't received the inoculation against radiation poisoning.

Jack shrugged it off. "I'll live. Come on—"

"Captain Harkness," she stayed him. "It has been my experience that a team follows the examples of its leader. Your refusal to take the same precautions…"

"I said I'd live. Natural immunity."

"There's no such thing as a natural immunity to radiation. So either you were lying to us—"

"I wasn't lying. The level hadn't reached lethal, ok?" he admitted under the penetrating scrutiny of her gaze. "But… but that was no reason to take chances with your lives, not when we had a cure right here." Nobody was dying, not today.

"What about your life?"

"Life is the one thing I've got an abundance of, Doc."

The lights suddenly went on around them.

Jack grinned. "Looks like somebody finally paid the electric bill around here."

Brennan scowled. Then… "That was a joke, wasn't it?"

He gave her a look. For someone so brilliant… "Yeah. That was a joke. Come on, let's go see if—"

"Jack," Ziva was at the door. "Bobby just woke up."

"What about Angela?" Brennan wanted to know.

"Not yet," the Israeli told her, sympathy filling her voice (although sympathy from Ziva was always a cool thing; it wasn't that she wasn't as emotional as anyone else, it was that she had been trained early on by her father to curb it. Conquer it. Quell it. Love and sympathy were not things prized in the David household. Neither was honour—but Ziva had reclaimed that. She could reclaim other things as well). "I am sure she will," she said to the other woman—to Jack—with as much conviction as she could muster. He appeared just as worried as Dr Brennan.

"She went down after Bobby," Jack reminded the scientist, his tone hopeful. "If he's awake, she should be up soon too."

"A logical conclusion," she agreed, although it sounded to both Jack and Ziva as if her façade of rational bravado was as much for her own sake as anything else.

…

Ianto and Shane had been summoned as well; everyone was crowding around the couch were the blond medic sat, gripping a mug of life-sustaining coffee in one hand that shook just a little. There was a blanket draped over his shoulders and an ice pack on his head, although Jack suspected that it wasn't going to help the knot he had there any. More concerning, Bobby's skin was pale. Sallow. He looked like he'd been dragged through Hell and back. The on-lookers parted instinctually to let the Captain through—even John seemed to unconsciously acknowledge the other's right to command.

"Jack—I—" Bobby began. He glanced at Angela, probably not for the first time. He looked up at the rest of them, the staff of the Jeffersonian, guilt and shame playing over his features. "I'm sorry, I—" he closed his eyes as if he was still fighting off the nightmare. "I should have… shouldn't have…" speaking seemed difficult.

The immortal's hand on his shoulder seemed to steady him; he knelt down so they were at eye level with one another. "Take your time," he gave his shoulder another gentle squeeze.

"I'm sorry," Bobby repeated.

"It's all right. Just tell us what happened—tell _me_ what happened," Jack coaxed him softly.

The medic nodded; nodding hurt. He set aside the ice pack and drank more coffee. At length he opened his eyes. He looked haunted… haggard. "It was… strange," he said at last. "It was like… I was seeing my life, Jack, my whole life, starting from the time I was a little kid, my first memories. My parents," he closed his eyes again… his childhood hadn't been the happiest. "It was like I was watching… it was like watching somebody else's life only… only I knew it was my life, I was there the first time around," he almost laughed—it was a cold, bitter sound. "It was like I was watching my life through somebody else's eyes. Through my eyes. I can't explain it," he shook his head as if to clear it. "I was there, but I was just an observer. It was like I was… I was trapped inside my own body."

Brennan scowled; she wasn't the only one. Several of her colleagues exchanged perplexed, worried glances as well, especially Dr Saroyan who had tried and been waved off when she tried to examine Chase's skull. He was determined that he was fine and didn't need medical attention, proof that doctors made the worst patients.

"You appeared to be experiencing rapid eye movement," Brennan told him, her tone matter of fact. "Like you were dreaming."

"It was one Hell of a realistic dream," the Australian almost laughed for real that time. He set down his empty coffee cup and looked at his boss. "It was real," he told him. "It wasn't a dream, Jack. I know that sounds crazy, but it wasn't a dream. I was there. I know I was there."

"What happened?" Jack asked him.

"Everything. My whole life. Except…" his expression was pained as he looked around the room… Ziva… Shane… Ianto… he could hardly bring himself to look at his boss's partner. He didn't know why, he just knew that when he tried, it hurt. Not a physical pain, but something just as tangible. It reminded him of the way Wendy described looking at Jack for the first time, like she was seeing, sensing, something that didn't belong… "None of you was in it," he told them in a ragged tone.

"Couldn't have been much of a dream without me," John Hart retorted with a saucy grin; it earned him a dark glare from Jack.

The immortal turned his attention back to his medic. "What do you mean, we weren't in it?" he wanted to know; he kept his tone even. Gentle. Bobby looked so very breakable at the moment. It wasn't a side of the Australian he was used to seeing.

"Remember… remember when you offered me the job? With Torchwood?"

Jack gave over a reassuring smile, "Sure I do." He shifted so his hands were on the other's knees, holding him. The way Bobby took hold of his hands came as a surprise… the odd bit of flirting aside, Bobby wasn't the most physically demonstratively affectionate person on his team, not like Abby or Gwen, anyway.

The medic nodded, more slowly this time. "I didn't take it. I got your letter but… but… Alison…I… it was _so_ real, Jack," his tone was plaintive. "It was like… like that was the reality and this is the dream."

"This is real, Bobby," Jack promised him. "Whatever happened, you're back now. It didn't happen—"

"It_ did_ happen," he insisted. "It happened for me. It was _real_. I was there. I lived it. I…" he looked down at the ring finger of his left hand, half expecting… but there was no wedding ring. No indent where there ever had been one. He met Jack's gaze full on. "Most of it… most of it was like a memory, like… like was just _remembering_ my childhood, not really reliving it because… because I had no control over that part of my life. I couldn't go back and make my mother stop drinking or turn my father into somebody who cares," tears stung at his eyes, but he blinked them back. "But then… there was a moment where I _could_ change something and I… I made… I made a different choice, Jack. I stayed in Princeton because… Alison… I did some good," he insisted, shifting his gaze once more to his ring finger, unaware of the moisture trickling down his cheeks. "You even said I did good," he added with half a smile; obviously even in a dream Jack's opinion meant more to him than anything else in the world. "It was a good life, Jack," he lied almost convincingly enough to fool the Captain. "But… this is a _great_ life."

Carefully, the older man freed one hand and brushed the tears away from the other's cheeks.

Bobby flashed a grateful, if slightly embarrassed, smile. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry."

"You have _nothing_ to be sorry for."

"I stayed in New Jersey," he told him again. "And because… because I was there… I did some things I wouldn't have done… things I _would_ have done—I'm not ashamed of what I did Jack! I know I'd do it again if I had the chance. But I'm sorry I…" he hesitated… "I'm sorry I…I wasn't here when you needed me." He looked up at his teammates again. His friends. People he never would have met if he hadn't accepted Jack's job offer—people who might not be alive if… _but how could one person make that much of a difference?_ He wondered, wondering if he wasn't being overly egotistical. Who was _he_ compared to Jack Harkness? Jack was… he was immortal!

But that didn't mean he was unbreakable… he glanced up at Ianto again. Jack wasn't unbreakable.

He closed his eyes again, letting the memory of another reality take over for a moment… He'd stayed in New Jersey to be with Alison. It had been an uphill battle… she found the ring. Broke up with him. Took him back. Gave him a drawer in one of her dressers. Finally married him. Then she left him over… over a choice that he _still_ didn't regret, not in any version of reality, even though he wasn't sure what kind of man that made him. He only hoped… Wendy… but Wendy wasn't Alison and Jack had told him he'd done the right thing when he…

He held Jack's hands a little tighter, afraid to let go, afraid that if he did he might lose _this_ life. This _Jack._

He remembered… after the thing with the children, he'd called Jack—it had been out of the blue, really, just a nagging at the back of his brain telling him he needed to talk to him. Maybe he just wanted to put the mess of his own life into perspective; the Captain was good for that.

He hadn't known what really happened in London, no one did. There had been no news story leaked to the press, no information made public. It was simply Britain—the whole world—back to normal at the end of one of the most horrifying weeks Bobby could remember. But when he called, it wasn't the same Jack. His tone…something was… different. So very different.

Jack came New Jersey a couple of weeks after that. Bobby poured out his own heartbreak, everything that had gone wrong in his life…his marriage. The day falsified a blood test to assure the death of one of his patients, a foreign dictator called Dibala. He wasn't ashamed of his actions, the man had been a brutal tyrant… he would have been responsible genocide in his home country… _he __**was**__ responsible for it,_ he thought bitterly. In _this _life, his real life, his real reality, Foreman, House… Taub…Thirteen. They had treated Dibala. Cured him. Sent him home to kill all those people.

His choice, in another life, had been to end Dibala's life when he had the chance and it had cost him his marriage. Was that really such a high price to pay, he wondered, now, here, hanging onto his Jack's hands.

He remembered that other Jack's response when he told him about it, wanting to know if he thought he'd done the right thing—the wrong thing. When he'd wanting desperately for just one person not to hate him for killing a man who surely deserved to die. Wanting for Jack to be that person, even if he didn't know why. In that reality, he barely knew Jack Harkness. He could still hear that Jack's words, the hollow bitterness of his tone:

_Sometimes one life __**has**__ to be sacrificed for the good of the rest of the world_… Even though he'd gotten the impression Jack wasn't strictly speaking to his situation, Bobby hadn't pressed him. He still didn't know why… but maybe it didn't matter. He never saw Jack again. The 'dream' hadn't gone any further than their good-bye that night at a pub in New Jersey, but he knew… whatever had happened, Jack was leaving. For good.

Even when Bobby opened his eyes and saw his Jack, the real Jack, sitting in front of him, his expression exactly as it had been only a few moments ago… concern… friendship… warmth… he could still see the pain-filled look in that other Jack's eyes, he could hear it in his voice when he said good-bye that last time… _so broken… like whole pieces of his soul were missing._ Like maybe the only reason he'd come to visit was to say good-bye.

But here he was whole.

Bobby swallowed, looked up at Ianto again. The Welshman gave over a tight lipped smile.

"I need some air," Bobby told them then, no longer wanting to think about it. Jack didn't seem to think he was all right to get up; he a tight grip of his hands, keeping him seated. "I'm fine, really," he assured him. "I just… I've got all these… memories… going through my head that aren't really mine…or maybe they are. I just need to get a little fresh air."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Dr Saroyan finally found her voice—found the courage to speak, to interrupt. "You have no idea what that thing did to you."

"I'm fine," Bobby told her. "It's not exactly the first time one of us has gotten zapped by alien technology," he added in a clearly forced glib tone; the comment was directed at his boss. "I know where I am. I know what's real, Jack. I just need a few minutes to clear my head."

Jack hesitated… but length he relented (although clearly Dr Saroyan didn't approve.) "Don't go too far," the Captain cautioned as he got to his feet. He was a little unsteady on them, but the colour had returned to his complexion.

"I'm just going to step outside," he said. "I can find my way," he added, when it looked like several people were ready to volunteer assistance. "I'll be back in ten," he promised his boss.

"I'll hold you to that."

Bobby gave over a wry grin. He'd never loved his life quite so much as he did after seeing another possibility. His only regret was that he hadn't been there to stop a tyrannical, murderous dictator…


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:**

ok, Angela's experience is a bit more garbled, owing to her personality. On Bones, about 2 seasons ago, I think, Zack ended up a willing accomplice to a cannibalistic serial killer… don't worry if that doesn't make sense to those of you who don't watch the series, it didn't make much sense to most of us! In this version of "reality", that disaster was averted, because I just never was able to believe that he was the apprentice cannibal...

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen**

**26 April, 2010**

"_Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves:  
regret for the past and fear of the future."_

Fulton Oursler

* * *

Camille Saroyan regarded Jack Harkness with unmasked, coldly askance contempt. "Are you out of your mind, Captain? I don't believe you just let that man walk out of here. You have no idea—"

Jack cut her off: "I trust my people. If he said he's fine, he's fine."

Cam shook her head.

"She's got a point, Jack," Brennan pointed out. (Booth shot her a look, seemingly trying to figure out exactly when the other had gone from 'Captain Harkness' to 'Jack'. Clearly he neither liked nor trusted the man.) "He may have a concussion from falling like that," the anthropologist went on, oblivious to her partner's disdain.

"As soon as he gets back, we'll get him checked out," he assured her. He couldn't deny that he was concerned for the medic, but whatever had happened to Bobby, it wasn't the result of hitting that pretty blond head of his on the floor. Something in that box had… had re-written time? At least for the span of the last hour or so, at least inside Bobby's mind? Was that really possible? "Ianto—"

"I'll see about getting our connection to Abby back up and running," the younger man always seemed to know exactly what he wanted.

Jack nodded his acknowledgement and tried not to let his gaze linger unduly over his Welshman's body as he departed. It hadn't escaped his notice the way Bobby kept looking at Ianto. The way he couldn't quite seem_ to_ look at him. _None of you were in it…_ that's how Bobby had described whatever it was he'd experienced. Maybe that just meant that he hadn't met them because he'd declined the job offer, but maybe… _what would have happened if he'd really turned me down?_ How much could possibly hinge on one person's decision to take or not take a job offer?

"Jack?" the sound of Angela's voice brought him out of his thoughts… for a moment he thought… but it was her husband she was looking at, all the love in the world reflected in her brown eyes. He couldn't deny the frisson of jealousy (after all, he was used to being the dashing hero)… but mostly he was glad she seemed all right.

"Hey there, Beautiful," Hodgins slid in closer, holding her hand, clinging to it. "You had me worried there for a while." (Only those who knew him realized how close he was to tears; for a while he'd been sure she was never going to wake up…)

She smiled an easy smile and pulled him into a kiss. "I'm not going anywhere," she promised when their mouths parted; she sat up with her husband's help.

"Angela," Brennan moved in closer. "What happened?"

"I…" she hesitated. "It was like… like a dream, only… only it wasn't a dream, it was real." She looked around the room then, at the faces of strangers… friends… finally she found the person she was looking for. "Zack," she pulled herself to her feet despite her husband's protests. When she wobbled on her feet, Harkness steadied her—but as soon as Hodgins stepped up, he stepped back. Angela remained oblivious. Her focus was solely on her young colleague. She pulled him into a tight embrace that clearly made the younger man feel awkward. Just as clearly, she didn't care. She held him close for several long moments despite the fact that it took Zack several of those moments to decide he ought to return her hug with one of his own.

When she finally released her grip on him, Angela took Zack's hands in her own, staring at them intently, like she was looking for… something. She smiled. She ran her fingers over his palms… over the backs of his hands as if to assure herself that her eyes were telling her brain the truth about what she was seeing.

"Angela, what are you doing?" he finally asked, trying unsuccessfully to pull back.

"You're ok," she smiled up at him, as if those two words explained everything.

"Why wouldn't I be ok?"

Instead of answering, she hugged him again. "I'm so glad you're ok! We all missed you so much!" She pressed a kiss to his cheek. "The lab wasn't the same without you here."

"Hey, Ange, give the kid some air, would ya?" Booth suggested; Zack was overwhelmed. The FBi agent looked at Harkness, but he seemed as much at loss as the rest of them. "Are _you _ok?" he asked of Angela.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she said to Booth, then turned to her husband, smiling broadly. "God, I love you."

"I love you too," he told her, looking bewildered.

"No, I mean, I really, really love you, Jack and… and getting married in a jail cell was fun and all, but I'm glad we did it at a church. It's just a shame about the tattoo. It was a little creepy at first, but I think it grew on me," she gave over a mischievous grin.

Hodgins frowned. "What tattoo?"

"The one my Dad… never mind. Oh God," she said suddenly, shuddering just at little, causing a frisson of worry to shoot through the rest of the group. However, "I'm never going to look at Wendell the same way again," was she had to say of her shudder.

"Wendell Bray?" Brennan asked her; Mr Bray was one of half a dozen interns she'd had over the last couple of years. He and Angela were friends, but…

"Yeah. Wendell Bray," her expression shifted from a grimace to a barely suppressed giggle; she turned to her husband again. "I am so sorry, Jack. I don't know what I was thinking when I… I mean… when we…me and Wendell… when we…" she didn't seem able to finish her sentence. "I'm sorry," she finally gave up the attempt. "You handled it really… _really_ well." She sounded proud of him.

"Maybe you'd better sit down," Hodgins suggested; he shot a sidelong glance at Harkness, but all the Captain could do was shrug. Neither of them had any idea what she was talking about. No one did. He and Angela hadn't been married in a jail cell and he didn't have a tattoo… although he wouldn't put something like that past his wife's father. As for Wendell… he wasn't sure he wanted to know what that was all about (because he had some idea and he didn't like where his imagination was taking him.) Angela turned away from him then, towards Jack Harkness.

"Ange?" the Captain queried. "Are you _sure_ you're ok?" he sounded dubious.

"I'm fine," she leant up and kissed his cheek tenderly. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For—well, I guess it wasn't really your fault, but if I hadn't been here today, if I hadn't looked inside that box, I might never know, never realize how precious some things really are," she favoured Zack Addy with the kind of look made the young man squirm.

"Please don't hug me again," he implored.

She smiled, but restrained herself. "I'm just glad you called me that night, that's all. I'm glad you trusted me. Thank you."

"What are you talking about?" he queried, although his tone suggested he knew exactly what she was referring to.

"Remember when you went to that conference a couple years ago?"

Slowly…nervously… the young man nodded. He looked decidedly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was heading. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone what we talked about," he reminded her in a guarded tone.

"And I won't Sweetie, I promise, not ever. I just… I'm so glad I picked up the phone that night. I almost didn't," she explained, looking at his hands again as if expecting to see something other than whole, unscarred skin and tissue. "By not picking up when you needed me, I changed… I changed _everything_. One conversation was all it took and… and I just want you to know that we never gave up on you, Zack. None of us. I won't hug you again," she promised when he took an almost involuntary step back. "I just… I want you to know how much I love you."

"Angela?" her husband questioned. First Jack Harkness, then Wendell and now _Zack_… never mind that the last two were only part of some sort of weird alien technology induced delusion… he hoped.

"It's all right," she told him.

"Right," Hodgins took her by the elbow, and steered her bodily towards the sofa. "Are you sure you didn't bump _your_ head?" he looked to Brennan for confirmation… but no, she hadn't.

"Maybe your people should run those tests you were talking about," Cam suggested in Harkness' direction.

The Captain nodded. "Good idea."

….

Bobby made his way out the back door without (much) difficulty. After the first few steps, his legs felt steady; he checked his pulse, something he realized he should have done sooner… but that was steady, too. He took a moment to observe his breathing. It seemed normal… not laboured or shallow… he felt fine other than the throbbing pain where he'd cracked his skull on the floor. As far as he could tell, he didn't have a concussion, hadn't rattled things around too much up there. He still felt a bit disoriented, still feared he would wake up and find out that this was the dream… but that feeling was fading, leaving behind only nagging questions.

Some of them he knew he would never be able to answer, like what had really happened to Jack to leave him so broken… he couldn't believe it had anything to do with him, not in any direct way. Jack had had had Liz Shaw on his team—she was brilliant. Better than brilliant. He was just a medical doctor; his specialization had been critical care, which was something of a joke if he looked at his job these days. Most of his patients were dead by the time they reached him… _bloody alien medical examiner… _

He leaned against the outside wall just outside the door and looked up into the sky. It was mid-afternoon… a little cloudy, a little chilly (he wished he'd thought to bring his jacket) but otherwise it was a perfectly beautiful, normal seeming day. A day just like any other day except for the fact that ever since that day in London, all those years ago, when he'd found himself fresh out of med school and in the middle of an alien invasion—he would never quite be able to look at the sky the same way again. Dagoon. Zygons. Daleks. Cybermen. He knew it wasn't all aliens waiting to attack, there were perfectly peaceful species out there, too, people like Sam… the Vespaform they'd rescued… the Arcateenians, most of whom were gentle, friendly, intelligent people. According to Jack even the Raxacoricofallapatorians as a race were all right. Most species were just like humans, a mix of good and bad.

He closed his eyes a long moment, taking in the smells and the sounds of the world around him as it was here, now, this life… the ground beneath him and building behind him were solid. He fished his mobile out of his jean's pocket; Wendy picked up in barely two rings.

"Bobby?" Concern and relief seemed to be competing for dominance in her tone.

He realized belatedly that she must know what was going on, must be worried out of her mind. "Yeah, it's me. I just woke up. Sorry if…" he shrugged even though she couldn't see him. He hadn't meant… God, he'd been an idiot to open an alien artefact with civilians around! He only hoped that whatever Angela Hodgins was experiencing, she would be all right when she woke up. If she woke up… there was no reason to think she wouldn't do, but… _but I was an idiot. _What if he'd gotten lost in that other life? What if…what if _that_ had become reality… he was sure he would never be able to get the look in that Jack's eyes out of his head.

"What happened?" Wendy's voice pulled him back to the present. The reality he was living in. The one he wanted to be living in. "Bobby?"

"I just… I needed to hear your voice," he told her. He needed to know that she was still a part of his life. This life. He needed to know… "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"This is going to sound a little strange," he cautioned.

"As compared to what?"

He almost laughed. She had a point. However, "What would you say if… if I killed somebody?"

"What if you killed who?" she asked in a wary sort of tone that did little to put him at ease.

But Wendy wasn't Alison. She would understand…_please understand… _"It doesn't matter who, just… what if… what if I'd killed… say…Adolph Hitler?" He supposed he ought to try and put it into context. "What if I killed somebody like that? How would that affect us?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line before Wendy asked to talk to Jack.

"Please, this is important, Wen. What if I got the chance to kill Hitler before World War II—before the concentration camps? What if I could stop all that from happening?"

"Robert," she almost never used his full name. "What are you talking about? Where's Jack?"

"He's inside with the rest of the team. _Please._ This is really important. I promise you, I wouldn't be asking if it weren't."

She was quiet for a long, _long_ moment. "You can't go back and change the past, Bobby," she said at last. "None of us can. I know time isn't strictly linier, but it's the way we were meant to live it. We have to just accept that, Sweetheart."

"I know all that. I'm not talking about… look, just think of it as a hypothetical question ok?" he begged her. "I'm not talking about really trying to change history, I just want to know—I _need _to know how you would feel if I killed one man to save thousands…hundreds of thousands. If I killed a guy like Hitler or Davros—"

"Killing one man wouldn't stop…"

"What if it could?" he asked, because in his life, this reality, Dibala _had _wiped out nearly the entire Sitibi population. The only thing that was different between this reality and the other one, as far as Bobby could tell, was him. In that other life, he'd murdered Dibala. "What if…what if killing one person—one thoroughly evil person—meant saving thousands more? Would you hate me for doing it?"

"I suppose... no, I _**know**__,_ that when the choice is truly between evil men and their victims that there_ is_ only one conscionable choice,_ a_**_ chuisle mo chroí_**_,_" _(pulse of my heart;_ his heart swelled with joy every time she called him that.) "We are obligated to remove what is evil from the world without hesitation to save those who are innocent, Bobby. Now will you please tell what this is all about?"

"Are you sure?" he asked, instead of answering her.

"_**Yes**_. Now tell me—"

"When I get home," he promised. "I just… I needed to know."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. I'd better get back before Jack comes looking for me."

"Bobby—I love you."

"I love you too. I love you more… more than I ever thought I'd love anybody."


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N:**

Again, a **HUGE thank you** for all the reviews! I so appreciate them… and it looks like I'm going to be working on a 'follow up'… remember those symbols Brennan showed Jack? I'd gotten an idea a while back for something after coming home from the Prince of Persia movie… don't know where it's going yet, just that we can expect to see the Doctor...

As for this short chapter… a little more explanation about what Angela saw seemed in order.

* * *

**Chapter Sixteen**

**26 April, 2010**

"_Our mistakes don't make or break us - if we're lucky,  
they simply reveal who we really are, what we're really made of."_

Donn Moomaw

* * *

Angela wasn't surprised by where she found Zack Addy, several hours later. It had taken her that long to convince _both_ Jacks that she was fine; she wasn't suffering any ill affects from looking into one possible future. In fact, she was grateful for the experience. She'd learned so much in that (amazingly) short amount of time in which she'd been unconscious. (From her perspective, the experience had lasted years; waking up to find everyone, herself included, still in the lab had been a relief. She'd half expected, when she first opened her eyes, to find herself in some sort of Sleeping Beauty-esque glass coffin… the image—and everything else that had happened—had inspired her to spend the last few hours sketching, while she tried to convince the pair of mother hens called 'Jack', that she was honestly fine. She didn't know what Bobby had seen that had left him so rattled, but for her part, she wouldn't trade the experience in for anything.)

"Hey," she said quietly as she crept up on her young colleague.

He didn't seem startled, despite the fact that he'd been so intent on what he was staring at she wasn't sure he'd heard her approaching. "Hello, Angela," he said quietly, still not taking his eyes from the huge silver skeleton that was tucked up safely in the Jeffersonian's vault. He had a key. He was allowed to be there… he wasn't sure why it suddenly bothered him to be 'caught'. He wasn't surprised Angela had come looking for him or that she'd known where to find him. In hindsight, his actions had been quite predictable.

The skeleton wasn't really silver…or, rather, it wasn't solid silver. The bones were human, coated in silver. They were the remains of murder victims, members of so-called secret societies who had fallen prey to a killer known in popular culture (or perhaps subculture) as 'the Gormogon.' (Hodgins had known the name straight away, none of the rest of them had ever heard of the Gormogon.) Gormogon was a title, like the Dread Pirate Roberts, though far less noble… although Zack had to admit a certain admiration for a man willing to abandon everything for the nobility of a personal crusade.

Angela was the one who had told him that there was nothing noble in murder. When she put it that way, it was hard to argue.

She laid a hand on his shoulder. "You ok?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"I think so. You want to talk?"

"What did you see, Angela?" he asked abruptly, turning to face her. "I did it, didn't I? I… what happened?" his own despondency was irrational, illogical. Irritating. He knew perfectly well what had happened. He remembered that conference, the one she'd mentioned earlier. He hadn't even wanted to go, but Dr Saroyan thought it would be good for him to 'get out and be with people'. Dr Brennan concurred. They both knew he wasn't good with people. He knew something bad was going to happen… but that wasn't true. No one knew the future, not with any certainty. One could make educated guesses, of course, but he didn't believe in premonitions or superstitions. He wasn't even sure he believed in whatever had happened to Angela and Dr Chase, except that when it came to alien technology none of them knew enough to speculate, to form a solid hypothesis. Therefore he couldn't fully discount that whatever Angela had seen, it might have been real, at least in the sense that she believed it was. After all, the eyes didn't really 'see', not in the way he understood most people to use the word. It was the brain that saw, interpreting the sensory input from the optic nerve… he looked back at the silver coated bones of skeleton. What he saw when he looked at those remains made his gut churn in an entirely unprofessional manner. "You did pick up the phone that night," he told her, unnecessarily. She knew she had picked up the phone.

Angela gave over a tight-lipped smile. "I almost didn't. I was so exhausted and… and I didn't… I'm sorry, Zack."

"You didn't really want to talk to me," his tone was neutral. Detached. It was a simple statement of fact, not an accusation.

"I'm glad I did," she forced another tight smile. One phone conversation was all it had taken to change… everything. If she hadn't picked up… she looked at his hands again.

"What happened?"

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes," he nodded. "I'm sure."

"All right." Angela steered Zack away from the skeleton, to somewhere where they could sit down without having it looming over them. "You listened to him. That day when approached you at the conference, you listened to what he had to say and… and you believed him." The Gormogon killer—she refused to call the psycho bastard 'the Master', his preferred title—was a bigger conspiracy theorist than Hodgins could ever be. In the other reality, her husband blamed himself for Zack's fall from grace, convinced that if he hadn't filled the younger man's head full of his rhetoric, Zack never would have believed the Gormogon. Which was only partially true. The Gormogon knew how to pick a mark, and Zack, genius that he was, was an easy mark for someone like that.

"There was logic in his arguments, Angela," the young man agreed, easily confirming her assessment of him. "He was very rational."

"Yeah," she decided that it was better not to argue, the same tactic she'd taken the night Zack called her on the phone after spending an afternoon being inundated by that psycho's mind-warping 'logic'. "But you know right from wrong, Zack," she reminded him, as she took his hands up in hers again.

"What did I do? When you didn't talk to me?" his tone remained neutral, his interest dethatched. "What happened to my hands?" because something must have, with the way she kept looking at them.

"You rigged one of yours and Hodgins crazy experiments to cause an explosion," she told him. "You were… you had third degree burns over both your hands, Sweetie. You'd lost… you lost the use of them. The damage was permanent."

"Why would I do something like that?"

"To create a diversion so the… so that bastard could get in here and take the skeleton. We figured out you were helping him while you were recovering. It broke Booth's heart to arrest you, Zack. It broke all of our hearts."

"I'm sorry I was such a disappointment."

"Oh, Zack," she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and squeezed him tight. "You were never a disappointment!"

He swallowed hard, uncomfortable. But, "Did I… did I kill anyone? Did I…" he couldn't help the churning in his gut. This was little more than a hypothetical conversation. None of the events they were discussing ever happened. However, "Did I… _eat_…"

"No! Zack, you didn't hurt anybody but yourself, I promise."

"That's not true. I hurt you and Hodgins. I hurt Dr Brennan and Agent Booth. I hurt the people I care about." His parents… his brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews… he couldn't begin to imagine how hurt they must have been to find out he was a murderer, or at least a murderer's accomplice.

"I guess maybe you did," she agreed in a soft, sympathetic tone. "But we _never _gave up on you."

"Angela… I don't ever want to hurt anybody."

"I know, Sweetie."

"But if I did… it means I could," he said thoughtfully, clearly, quietly, horrified by the prospect.

"No. I know you—"

"If what you really experienced was a possible alternate reality than the only logical conclusion is that I _could_ hurt somebody, Angela. In one version of reality, I did. I helped him."

"Zack, that was _one_ possibility."

"Which proves that it _is_ possible."

She sighed. "Zack, listen to me. Even in that reality, you—some part of you _knew_ it was wrong. You left so many little clues for us to find—you were just so clever about it that it took us a little time to put the pieces together. We're not as smart as you are, remember?" she flashed a mischievous, lopsided grin.

Zack was thoughtful for a moment. "You mean that subconsciously I wanted to be caught?"

"Exactly."

He considered… then, "I'm really glad you picked up the phone."

"Me too," she gave him another tight squeeze and kissed his cheek.

"Please stop doing that."

She ruffled his hair. "Not a chance, Zackaroni."

…

A box that showed alternate realities, possible futures… Ianto wondered exactly how he was going to write that up in his notes. He sighed and drank his coffee. Some days he couldn't help but wish for a normal job.

He heard the sound of hard soled boots on hard linoleum flooring before he heard the other man's annoying drawl. "Not sure how to write this one up, eh, Eye Candy?" John Hart's question broke the relative silence of the workspace the younger man had commandeered for himself in the lab-employee's break-room. He didn't really need much, just a laptop and a cup of coffee. The advantage to setting up in here was that the coffee station was quite literally within arms' reach.

It took all of his resolve not to snap at the other man. "Somebody has to deal with the paperwork," he said, instead.

John smirked. "And that someone is always you, isn't it?" he pulled out a chair from another table, turned it the wrong way round and straddled it. "Jack never was one for the little details."

Ianto regarded him a moment. Finally. "No. He still isn't."

"So what… you trail along after him and pick up his messes? That hardly seems fair."

"At least things get done. I can hardly imagine the two of you together with nobody around to clean up after you."

"Touché," he smirked. "Still. Makes one wonder."

"What?" Maybe he needed more coffee…

John shrugged in a clearly deliberately non-committal way. "You know, 'what if' this or 'what if' that…"

Ianto sighed. He didn't have the time or patience for the other's antics; he was still operating on Cardiff time and in Cardiff it was well past tea… he glanced at his watch. Forget tea, it was nearly time for bed. Before he could express his desire to be left alone, however, the other man took his leave. _Thank God…_ one thing John was right about. He was, as usual, left to clean up after Jack and someone from the Jeffersonian had apparently called the State Department to lodge a formal complaint… it wasn't until after John left him that an unsavoury thought crossed Ianto's mind.

But Jack wouldn't have left the artefact unguarded… would he? _Of course he would. No one in their right mind would look into it after what had happened to Bobby… _but John wasn't exactly what he would consider 'in his right mind.'

_Shite._

He flipped the laptop shut and ran to check on the ossuary…


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:**

Ok, last update for today... I seriously need to get some stuff done around here :-) It's just been really nice *not* to be getting up at the crack of dawn with the husband the last couple of days. Getting a decent nights' sleep does wonders for a creatie mind :)

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* * *

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**Chapter Seventeen**

**26 April, 2010**

_God can heal a broken heart, but He has to have all the pieces._

~Author Unknown

* * *

When asked later what happened, Ianto wouldn't be able to give a concrete answer. He would remember only finding John Hart lying prone on the floor in front of the ossuary, which itself was on the ground, giving him cause to believe that John hadn't fallen, that he'd sat himself and the artefact on the floor before opening it… Hart had that much sense of self-preservation, at least.

What the young Welshman wouldn't be able to explain, however, was how he got himself trapped by the swell of burning white light that burgeoned out of the open box. It engulfed him, searing skin from muscle, muscle from bone, burning bones down to nothing… it only lasted an instant. An eternity. He floated in the blackness of space… time… for a moment…forever… lonely. Yearning. Searching… searching for… for something.

_Jack._

Those beautiful, immortal blue eyes.

Jack's strong arms holding him, keeping him safe.

His scent… his coat wrapped around his shoulders, keeping him warm.

_Even when you're not here, keep me warm at night… _Jack's voice whispering at him in the darkness.

_I will always love you. I will never forget you._

Don't forget to empty the bins.

_Don't go… please don't go… I need you… _Jack's voice pleading with him, begging him to stay.

Wish I could…

But the darkness tugged at him. He wasn't strong enough to resist its pull. This was it. He was dying.

We're not over, Jack. I swear, we're not over!

_Don't leave me… _tears trickled down his Captain's face, contorted in pain.

I won't. I won't ever leave you. I swear. Even… even when the last star goes out, Cariad. Just look for me and I'll be there, I'll be waiting for you in the dark. I love you!

I love you…

Love you…

You…

Darkness… so cold.

_To live. To love. To remember. To love again._

A thousand strange memories… coffee shops and alien skies… names, places, people he'd never met yet knew intimately… there was only one person he wanted to see again. To know again… to love and be loved by again. But the timing had to be just right... he had to endure so much to get to him.

Doesn't matter, he told the Universe. He would gladly walk through fire and glass to be with Jack again...

_The young man didn't understand the strange attraction he felt for the Captain… he was handsome, but it was so much more than that… it was his scent, and his smile… those eyes, so familiar… _

_Memories he didn't remember made his heart ache with longing for a man he knew he could never have, a man who would never want him—never even notice him. Brash words tumbled out of his mouth as if of their own accord:_

"_Careful, that's harassment, Sir," he shot a wink in the Captain's direction. _

Do you remember me?

_Only instead of laughing, Jack stopped dead in his tracks, demanding an explanation. It filled him with such terror… why had he said something like that? _

Why don't you know who I am? He tried to scream _'it's me, I came back, just like I promised I would!'_ but he couldn't make his mouth say the things he wanted it to say. All he could do was stumble over a frantic apology and flee with heat burning in his cheeks, his heart pounding in his chest… seek refuge in solitude…

"_Don't forget to empty the bins…" _Jack!

Only instead of filling him with warmth, the sound of the Captain's voice in the otherwise empty corridor filled him with dread. He didn't understand it. Nothing made any sense. Nothing was right!

"_If you like old books you should come by my quarters sometime…" _

_He didn't want to go, but what choice did he have? _

_But it wasn't what he expected. It was tea and conversation. _Oh God, I've missed you, Cariad! I've missed you so much.

Being with him again felt so good, even though Jack didn't seem to know who he was… but the way he brushed his fingers up against his when he handed Jack back his mug… do you really think you're fooling anybody, Ianto wondered at him… We both know you're trying to seduce me here, you're really not that slick, Jack.

"_Six months is an awfully long time." _

It's nothing compared to five hundred long years, only, _"Yes. It is," _was the only thing to come out of his mouth.

_But that kiss… oh that kiss…_

It felt so good to kiss him again! He held on as tight as he could, desperate for it never to end.

Do you remember me now, Cariad? Please… please say you remember me! I couldn't bear to lose you this time, not after a kiss like that. I need you Jack.

_Only when their lips parted Jack looked so stricken by that kiss. _Don't you love me any more?

"_You should go… it's not you... It's __**not**__ you."_

Yes it is! It is me! Please! Don't do this! Don't send me away…

Patience. I just have to be patient. I have to give him time. I have to show him, prove to him…

"_Let me buy you a drink…"_

_A lump of cold fear… _of hope_. _But then the words came and he couldn't stop them: _"I… really don't know, Sir… I mean… I appreciate the offer, but you wouldn't want anyone to think the wrong thing of you, Sir."_

Too afraid… why was he so afraid? All you have to do is go to him… just… just **go** to him!

Only he wasn't there. By the time he got to the pub, Jack was gone… _of course he's gone, why would he want somebody like me, somebody so completely used up? I'll never be anyone to him… I'll never be anything to anyone. I don't deserve to be._

_He stepped out of the cantina into the main corridor and… _

No… no, no, no… oh God, please not again_… _but fighting back wasn't an option. It was better to just endure…

_All he wanted to do was shower. Clean himself up. Get their stench off his body. Then he could sleep… heal… He only wished his heart would heal as easily as he knew the bruises would. It was stupid… it was __**so**__ stupid. The tears he was crying weren't over what had been done to his body. His body was meant to be used, it didn't matter… they could have his body, he didn't care any more. He was only crying because he'd been stupid enough to hope that Jack… Captain Harkness… might actually… might what? Want __**him**__?_

"_What happened?" _Jack! Jack, please…

"_Nothing," _the word came out of his mouth unbidden._ It was the kind of lie a man like Jack Harkness wanted to hear. He didn't want the truth. He didn't want to know what went on behind his back. _

_He didn't want to know how much a stupid little boy loved him._

_Only instead of leaving it with a lie that would be easy to accept, the Captain demanded to know who had hurt him. _

_He couldn't answer so he bit his lips so hard it bled._

_Jack reached out and wiped away the blood… his touch was like electricity… he couldn't meet the Captain's gaze. He couldn't look into those blue eyes because if he did he might start to believe in impossible things… _

_Jack bundled him up into his arms. He took care of him. He settled him into his bed and pulled soft covers up around him. The blanket smelled like him. It made him feel so warm. So safe. So very happy._

_Jack feathered a soft kiss across his forehead and even though he didn't say 'I love you', he told him to sleep and his tone was filled with… with so much to hope for. Sleep came easily._

I found you again and this time you know me. Even if you don't know it yet, you know me, Jack. We'll have a proper life together this time, I promise. Sixty, seventy years. I know that's not really a lot compared to your life, but…but it's something, isn't it? We can have so much this time.

"_Ready to head back?" Jack asked him. _

_Even though he wasn't ready for their first date to end, he said he was ready… he fell into easy stride with his Captain, knowing that… that everything was going to be all right. For the first time in as long as he could remember—his entire adult life anyway—he felt happy. Truly, utterly happy, because Jack wanted __**him**__, he'd said so. He'd kissed him. He'd kissed him in public, for all the world to see. He wasn't ashamed of him. He didn't care who he was or what he'd been._

_Out of nowhere… cracking bone… blood… _**Jack!**

_He sobbed out Jack's name as the older man crumpled to the deck floor… blood pooled around his head… his skull was cracked wide open… _

**Please get up!**_… rough hands kept him from his Captain's side… _I have to be here when he wakes up! _He wasn't moving… there was so much blood… _they were so much stronger than him.

"_Shit, Fletch… I think you killed him…" a voice… it belonged to one of the men with the rough hands… _

_Oh God, please, I just found him, don't take him away from me! _

It'll be all right, he'll wake up in a few minutes, he's immortal, remember?

_But dead men didn't wake up and Jack was… he was… there was so much blood. He wasn't breathing. It wasn't fair! _

He felt himself stop struggling against the men holding him_. _He felt himself giving up all hope…

_Jack was dead. Nothing else mattered. They'd had less than a day and now it was over… _

Darkness spun in on itself, choking him.

_He didn't care what they did to him, not any more. Nothing mattered, not without Jack. _

Don't give up! Please don't give up. He'll come for you… me. Us. Whatever. This is Jack we're talking and he promised, he _swore_ he would _**always**_ come back for me! You have to believe in that—in him. He'll always love you, remember? He'll never forget you. He is the one thing in this Universe that is constant.

_Then suddenly there was Henry, holding him the way Jack had when he carried him to the infirmary and for a moment… but… he didn't take him back to the ship, he took him to his suite… he put him in his bed and bid him sleep… only nobody helped somebody for nothing… Henry Fitzroy had to want something and there was only one thing someone like him had to give… _

_It didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more._

_Some day the last star would go out and he would be with Jack again. In the meantime, he would sleep and he would dream cling to that one day they'd had together until he had the strength to find the Darkness for himself. In his dreams, he could almost hear his Captain's voice… he could smell that wonderful scent… _fifty first century pheromones at their very best.

_A hand on his shoulder threatened to pull him from his dreams… please just let me sleep a little longer… _

"_You awake?" that voice… it couldn't be real… the bed sagged… he opened his eyes…_

JACK!

_Oh he couldn't be seeing what he thought he was seeing… "Please tell me you're real," he begged. "Please tell me I'm awake."_

"_I'm real. You're awake."_

_He held him. He held onto him so tight, terrified that if he let go, Jack would vanish. __"I thought… oh God… I thought… I just found you and then… then you were gone…" he kissed him, a kiss so familiar, l__ike finding the piece of himself that's been missing for so long he'd forgotten what it felt like to be that whole. He didn't __care how foolish he seemed or what Jack was. He wanted the moment to last forever… _

_Only suddenly it was over. He was alone in the darkness, feeling… empty. Broken._

He was here! I know he was here!

He could still feel Jack's kiss burning on his lips. He could taste him… **smell** him. **He was here!**

_The door opened and hope surged in his chest… but… it wasn't Jack. Jack was gone… _

The world crumbled around him, fragmenting into pieces like shards of broken glass. Five hundred years. He'd waited five hundred years and all he got was… was **one day! **

Why did he leave me like that?

Why would he abandon me after… after only **one day**? It wasn't fair!

"_Henry?" he didn't think to realize that he'd never called Henry Fitzroy by his first name before. "Why… why did he leave me?"_

_Fitzroy frowned. "Why did who leave you?"_

"_Jack."_

"_Jack's dead, Kam."_

_He shook his head. "He was here. I saw him."_

"_Kam, you were having a nightmare," Henry sat on the edge of the bed and soothed a cool hand across his face. "It was a bad dream, nothing more."_

"_It wasn't a dream," he insisted, even though it rang true. Henry's words rang true, but he knew…_

He doesn't love me any more… that's why he left. Jack doesn't… he doesn't love me…

"_He kissed me," he sobbed. "He… he told me good-bye."_

Five hundred years… I waited for five hundred years… and… he didn't remember me… he doesn't love me…

_Henry scrutinized him closely as if seeing him for the first time. "He was here," he finally relented with the truth._

"_He's not coming back, is he?" _

"_I… I don't know."_

"_Doesn't matter." He pulled his knees up to his chest. Jack was gone. He wasn't dead. Somehow he wasn't dead. He couldn't die. He remembered… he remembered so much, but none of it mattered._

"_Kam…"_

_He shook his head. "He promised me the rest of my life, Henry," tears continued to trickle down his cheeks; Jack had never promised him any such thing not in real life, but in his dreams… in his dreams he'd said he would always love him, never forget him.. "I believed him. I believed in him. I looked for him for so long and I finally found him and… and I thought this time…I thought… why? Why doesn't he want me? Why doesn't he love me?"_

_Cold arms wrapped themselves around him as he lapsed into more sobs. "He'll come back, you'll see." He kissed his forehead just like Jack would have if he were there… but he wasn't there and he wasn't coming back. It wouldn't matter if he waited seven months or seven years… seventy years… seven hundred… this time it was… it was really over. _

_**They**__ were over. Jack didn't want him any more._

_He waited until Henry was out… he hated filching around another man's desk, but he knew Henry would have pens and paper… he was just that kind of person… just like Jack. _

_He cried. He'd done nothing but cry since Jack had come to see him. Left him. Part of him didn't understand why he knew so much, but… _but it's true. He was here. He left. He doesn't love me any more.

_He locked himself in Henry's bathroom and sat in the tub so as not to make too much of a mess. He knew what the smell of blood would do Henry, but he didn't know how else to do it… he clutched the kitchen knife firmly in hand, willing himself not to shake. He didn't hesitate. He made a long, clean cut along the vein, slicing as deep as he was able… he barely felt it._

_As Final Darkness overtook him, he could see all the things that should have been, how happy they would have made each other if Jack had only given him a chance, if he'd come back like he was supposed to. Basketball… movie night… the Wizard of Oz… a proper life together… a thousand little memories of all the things that would never be… _


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

**26 April, 2010**

* * *

"_If you are cold at night, let the promise of my love cover you like a warm blanket."_

Matthew White

* * *

When Jack didn't find his Welshman in the Jeffersonian's employee break room, he went looking, although not because he suspected anything was amiss. He'd simply hoped to provide a distraction for the younger man; Ianto had a bad habit of working way too hard. It was almost as an afterthought that he checked the room where he'd left the artefact. No one should even be in there…

Jack's heart plummeted through the soles of his boots when he saw Ianto lying there, not moving… the box was no where in sight, but that was the last thing he cared about as he rolled his partner over. The younger man's skin was cool to the touch. His face was so pale… deathly pale. _No… no, no, no… _frantically he pressed his fingers to his husband's neck.

He felt…_ please, __**please**__ be ok… _but he couldn't find a pulse.

"Bobby!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. He loosened Ianto's tie, unaware of how badly his hands were shaking, unaware of anything except… _**"BOBBY!" **__Please… _he pressed his fingers to his Welshman's neck a second time, but the results didn't change. _**Please**__… not yet. _He wasn't ready to lose him, not yet. Not ever but not… not today. _Please not today._ Nobody was supposed to die today.

He gathered the lifeless body up into his arms and pressed his lips to his partner's mouth…they were so cold… so impossibly cold. He kissed him long and hard. He'd never had any control over how it worked, he just knew that sometimes it did, sometimes he could give a little bit of life to somebody else. He kept kissing him until he heard footsteps at the door… he didn't look up as Bobby came into the room. He knew he was there but… "Ianto, please, come on, come back to me. I need you."

He didn't respond, didn't move. He wasn't breathing.

"Jack…"

He didn't hear the medic's voice, didn't see the expression on his face—Bobby recognized the look in the Captain's eyes, that same hollow despondency he'd witnessed in that other Jack's eyes, the one in his 'vision'.

Jack kissed his partner again. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. "Please don't leave me, Sweetheart," he begged. "Please don't go. Don't leave me all alone." Not like this. Not today.

The touch of a hand on his shoulder drew his attention, if only for a moment.

"Jack, what happened?" Bobby asked him in a gentle tone. He'd never seen Jack looking so close to being broken, at least not in this life.

The immortal couldn't answer him. He held his partner's body tighter, rubbing the younger man's arms, trying to warm him back up. The kiss should have worked by now, unless… unless it was too late. "I can't lose him," he didn't fully realize he had spoken, didn't recognize the sound of his own voice. "He should be back…" the kiss should have worked by now! He knew it wasn't a guarantee, but it should have… it had to work!

Bobby felt for a pulse on the young man's wrist…nothing. Ianto wasn't breathing. "Come on, Jack. Jack! We're going to have to do this the old fashioned way," he told him. He wasn't prepared to lose Ianto, either, not today, not like this. He wasn't prepared to see Jack, his Jack, break apart the way that other Jack had been broken. "Work with me," he said to the Captain as he unbuttoned Ianto's shirt and shifted him back onto the floor. "Jack!"

Dumbly he nodded; he used the heels of his hands to scrub the tears from his cheeks. _Focus._ He had to focus. The old fashioned way. He knew first aid, he knew… he watched helplessly as Bobby began manual CPR. When he nodded to him, he breathed into his partner's mouth. With each breath, Jack begged for a miracle, begged for just a little bit of whatever it was that made him immortal to rub off onto his husband. It had happened before. Why wasn't it happening now? Ianto wasn't even thirty! It wasn't fair! They needed more time. _**He**_ needed more time.

_Please, just a few more years…_he would live forever, couldn't he just have a few more with the man he loved so much? He'd never expected to find love like this. Who would want a guy like him for anything more than a couple of one-night stands, anyway? "Don't go, please don't go. Please don't leave me, Sweetheart," he stroked his Welshman's cheek while Bobby counted out chest compressions. He breathed into Ianto's mouth… _please let us have more time together._ There was so much more he wanted to give his partner, so much he wanted to show him. So much they hadn't done, things he hadn't made the time for…

Underneath him the younger man suddenly sucked in air; Jack held him, kissed him hard, unsure whether it was CPR or the kiss that had brought him back, but not wanting to take any chances. He was shaking. They both were. "Oh, God, Ianto," he gripped him tight, "you scared me there for a minute," he tried to tease him. His jovial expression was short lived. The smile that had begun faded the instant his Welshman looked up at him, a wild, unrecognizing—unrecognizable—look in his… for half a second, Ianto's eyes looked brown. Jack frowned. "Yan…?"

"Ianto?" Bobby checked his pulse… his heart was beating again, it was strong but… but everything about the situation begged for him to make a strategic retreat. Whatever the box had shown his Welsh colleague, it wasn't for him… what the box showed people was… personal. He didn't know how he knew it, he just knew he didn't belong there. Neither Jack nor Ianto seemed to notice him taking his leave.

"Sweetheart… what is it, what's wrong?" _Please tell me you're all right… _"Ianto, talk to me." He needed to hear so much more than those beautiful Welsh vowels…

Gulping in more air, the younger man stared at him… at the room around them, wildly, trying desperately to get his bearings, to remember where he was, what he was doing there… the last thing he remembered was… the knife… blood… _God, Henry… I'm so sorry… _he remembered… he remembered filching around Henry's desk for paper and a pen… his hands shook as he wrote the note, one last farewell, an attempt to explain… he didn't mean to be a coward, really he didn't, but he knew… in his heart and soul he knew that he and Jack were over. Really over. Forever-over and he didn't know how to live with that, with the knowledge that Jack didn't love him any more, so he went into the kitchen and found a knife and…

"No… no, no, no," Ianto muttered at himself, "don't… please don't! There's always tomorrow… there's always…" but he couldn't stop him. He couldn't stop him_self_. He and Jack were over. They were really over. Jack didn't love him any more, he didn't want him. "You were the reason I came back... the _only_ reason I came back. Why did you stop loving me?" His voice was small and weak, filled with such heartbreak that Jack barely recognized the sound of it.

"Ianto…"

He pulled away from the immortal, frantically shoving his sleeve up over his left arm expecting to see… he sagged with relief when he saw only unmarred flesh. He might not have tomorrow, but at least he had today… one day… _we only had that one, perfect day…_ and then it was all over. "Why? Why didn't you come back for me?" he wanted to know.

"Ianto—Sweetheart, _please_. I'm here. I'll always be here."

"You won't. You left me."

"I didn't leave you. Talk to me," he coaxed. "Tell me what you saw."

Tears streamed down his husband's cheeks. "You left, Jack. You… you didn't want me any more. You didn't love me any more."

"I will always love you."

Ianto pulled further away from him. "You left me!" he repeated, anger and despair filling his voice in equal measures. "You left me and…" he stared back down at his arm again. "You died and you didn't come back for me, Jack." But that wasn't true—he did come back. One last kiss. One last good-bye. He could still feel it burning on his lips. He could taste Jack inside his mouth.

_One last kiss._

_One last good-bye._

Then he was gone and Henry tried to take the memory of his being their from him, tried to ease the pain, but he couldn't make it go away. He couldn't make him forget, the memory was too strong.

"You abandoned me, Jack. You… you made me believe I was so special, you said you wanted me! But then you… you abandoned me, Jack! All I did was love you, but… but it wasn't enough for you," he wept bitter tears… bitter cold… empty… The pain was too much. It crushed down on him, making his insides cave in on themselves, making him wish he _was_ dead. He remembered the Darkness with longing. Soft and merciful, it had washed over him, soothing away the hurt, the feeling of loss… emptiness… he was so, _**so**_ empty inside without Jack… he'd endured so much… he'd walked through fire and glass…and at the end of it, Jack didn't want him any more. "I couldn't live without you," he sobbed. _"__**I didn't know how to live without you!**__"_

"Ianto, please… I didn't leave. I'm here. I'm _**right **_here! I'm not going anywhere, I promise," he swore desperately. Fearfully.

"You said you'd always love me, but you didn't love me! You said you'd never forget me, but you did forget me!"

"Ianto, listen to me. Please, listen to me. Whatever you saw, it wasn't real. I haven't left you. I'm here. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. I swear, I won't ever leave you like that. Please… please believe me."

The edge of panic in his husband's voice seemed to draw him up, just a little, from the edge of darkness. He studied Jack's face, looked at him as if he was seeing him for the first time since he'd woke up.

"I didn't leave you, Ianto," he repeated through fresh tears. "I love you. I love you so much. You're the only thing… you make my life worth living. You. _**Only**__ you_."

"You will forget," his Welshman whispered back at him, still crying, but no longer weeping, sobbing… just… tears. Quite tears. "I saw it. You didn't even know me."

The immortal shook his head, unable to believe…

"I would have loved you forever, Jack. Even when the last star went out, I would have been there. I would have waited for you in the Dark for as long as I had to… the Dark isn't as scary a place as you think it is. It was so… peaceful. I didn't hurt here. I would have waited for you. But… but you left me and… and I couldn't survive it." He curled in on himself, unable to look at Jack any more. "You broke every promise you ever made to me."

"Ianto, please…" he tried to reach out to him, to touch him hold him, reassure him, but the other pulled away again, retreating further and further into himself. "I love you," he told him helplessly. He knew it wasn't enough, but it was all he had. "Please… come back to me. I love you so much. I need you. _Please_…!" Nothing. No response. Just soft crying… "Ianto, please, whatever you saw, whatever happened, whatever I did… please, just give me a chance to make things right. Please, Sweetheart, give me _one_ chance. I won't screw things up, this time. Whatever I did… I'll fix it. I'll do anything you say, just please, _please_ don't leave me!"

He couldn't speak any more. He couldn't even move. All he could do was weep for all the things that should have been. Basketball… movie night… all the people he would never meet… the friends he wouldn't have. Faces in the dark cried out to him… Jack had abandoned them, too.

"Ianto?" tentatively, he reached for the younger man again. He didn't pull back, but he didn't shift closer either. Still, it was enough to give him hope. "Sweetheart, please. Please tell me what to do. Tell me how to make this right. I'll do anything you say."

"Don't leave me," he begged, his voice little more than a soft, ragged whimper. "Just… just don't leave me. That's all you have to do." It was so simple, why hadn't he just stayed! They could have had so much together!

"I won't. I promise I won't leave you."

"I love you so much, Jack. So much it hurts sometimes."

Jack curled himself around his husband's body. "I love you that much, too," he whispered.

"But you'll forget. You'll forget all about me, some day. It'll be like I never even existed."

"I won't."

He would. Ianto knew he would. Still, he let Jack pull him into his lap and wrap those strong arms around his shoulders. He took in his scent. It felt so good to be held even if we sure, so sure, it wouldn't last. He closed his eyes… they hurt from crying so much. His whole body ached. "Just promise me… promise you'll love again, Jack," he whispered at length.

"Sweetheart—"

"Please, Jack," he looked up at him again, blue-grey eyes still glistening with tears. "I need to hear you say it. I need you to promise me… say you'll love again, Jack. Tell me… tell me you won't give up." _Tell me you'll love me enough not to leave me the next time we meet._ "Please, Cariad."

"I promise," he swore, as he feathered a soft kiss to the younger man's temple.

"_Say it."_

"Someday I'll love again, Ianto. I will. I promise you will. But… but I won't ever forget you," he said past the lump in his throat. "I won't forget that Ianto Jones existed and that he loved me more than anything."

He closed his eyes again and curled further into the warmth of his Captain's embrace. He wasn't sure he believed that Jack would remember him, but just as long as he kept his promise it would be all right. _They_ would be all right.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N:**

**Thank you **so much for the wonderful reviews this has gotten… you have so made my day.

Ok, Here we go, the last chapter. It's been a heck of a ride for me, too. I can't say I'm completely unhappy to get off the roller coaster and get my feet back on solid emotional ground for a while :-)

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen**

**26 April, 2010**

_Love is not when you know you can live with somebody.  
Love is when you know you can't live without them_

Author Unknown

**…**

"_There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love."_

Bryant H. McGill

* * *

On Bobby's suggestion, Jack decided to skip the 'formalities' and simply take Ianto straight home, straight back to a familiar environment. The theory was that being in his own home, surrounded by the things he knew best, would get his mind focused on the here and now, on this life, and help ease whatever trauma he'd experienced in that other reality.

The only delay the Captain made was to call his mother and arrange for her to take the kids over to Ianto's mom's for the night. "Have them think of it as a sleepover or something," he asked her…begged her. His tone was enough to convince her not to ask questions. He didn't want to worry Jason, who was old enough to be worried when stuff happened (and to notice that 'stuff' seemed to happen an awful lot), or upset Seren, who while too young to understand, was still pretty perceptive to the moods of the adults around her. "Tell Ianto's mom that I'll call her in the morning," he said, knowing that she would be worried, too. Sometimes he thought she knew more than he wanted her to about what her son did for a living, even though she seemed content to continue going along with the Tourist Bureau ruse.

"Jack…"

"I'll explain to you, too," he promised.

"Just tell me that you're both all right."

"We're fine," he said, praying that it was the truth. He'd shaken his beautiful Welshman's faith him before, but he didn't want to think about what would happen to them if he ever completely shattered it, if he betrayed him. He couldn't imagine ever leaving him but… but Ianto had seen it, just like Angela and Bobby had seen things that could easily have happened, if they'd made different choices in their lives.

Jack closed his eyes. He'd looked into the box himself. After Angela… Bobby… the things they'd seen… Bobby's experience had been a little rougher on him psychologically than hers, but neither of them was hurt by what they'd seen and he couldn't resist the temptation of knowing what might have happened if…there were so many possibilities, (and it wasn't like a little radiation was going to kill him.) What if he'd never met the Doctor? Never met Rose? What if, somehow, he'd never lost two years of his life back when he was with the Time Agency? What if he'd never _joined_ the Time Agency? What if the box could show him what had happened during those missing years of his life… what if he hadn't let go of Gray's hand that day...?

Only when he looked into the box, he didn't see anything. There was… light. Bright, white… it tingled for a moment, then everything dark. So dark. And then he opened his eyes and looked at his watch and realized he'd been unconscious for less than five minutes.

_Is that all the future holds for me? _he wondered. _Nothing?_ Nothing but darkness and empty space, not even a single star to light his way.

Jack shuddered.

He shook himself. The box was gone now. So was John. As far as he was concerned, the other could keep it; he never wanted to see the damned thing again.

…

Ianto looked up when Angela joined him in one of the lounge areas. She didn't say anything, she just sat down quietly next to him, giving over a sympathetic look, a tight little smile… she understood. He knew she did. _Of course she does, Jack loved her too once… _he probably still did. He wasn't jealous of that. Jack had so much capacity for love in that immortal heart of his. He loved so many people.

He closed his eyes and tried to just concentrate on breathing. On the seat beneath him, the smells around him. He tried not to give into the panic that kept threatening to overtake him with each second that ticked by. It was like time had slowed down, making each second stretch out into eternity… he looked past Angela at the door again.

Jack had only left him alone a few moments ago.

He said he had something to do. John had made off with the artefact… _he has more important things to worry about than me… _he'd left him cozied up on one of the sofas with a cup of tea. He was safe. Sound. Fine.

He was a mess.

He kept expecting to see blood where he'd… _I would never do a thing like that! _he kept telling himself. He wouldn't do that to Seren, he wouldn't leave her all alone. He wouldn't leave Jason or Remy or his sister, brothers… his mam…his friends… Siawn… no matter what happened, he would _never _leave them, not like that. (Nerys would never forgive him if he did, of that he was sure. Her, Abby, Wendy, Gwen, Sara… God, they'd be tempted to find another 'Risen Mitten' and drag his arse back just so they could kill him personally if he ever tried a stunt like that!)

He looked down at his empty cup. Suicide was the coward's way out and he wasn't a coward… yet he remembered writing the note, telling him Henry was sorry, asking him to tell Jack he'd said good-bye. Good-bye forever. The handwriting in his memory wasn't his. He wasn't even sure the words were in English… if he focused his attention on the memory hard enough, he was sure they weren't English. But they weren't Welsh either. It didn't make any sense.

"It's going to be ok," Angela said at length. He'd almost forgotten she was there.

"Yeah. I know," he lied. She was probably right. He was being stupid. Just because Jack had a working vortex manipulator... it couldn't take him through time any more, but it was just good for a 'short hop'—only Jack's idea of a short hop was a whole lot different than his.

He swallowed hard. Jack wouldn't really leave him… would he? If he did, what would he do? Would he really...

Angela's voice drew him up out of his thoughts: "Ianto… I… we never really got a chance to talk before," she reached over and laid a hand on his knee.

Instinct made him to cover her hand with his. He curled his fingers into her fingers… she was like Wendy and Abby, like Gwen, like Sara could be, too…she was warm. Full of emotion. Full of fire. It was easy to see why Jack had loved her.

"I don't know what you saw," she said to him. "But whatever it was… it was an opportunity. A chance to change things, to make a difference in the world. In your world. In Jack's."

"It wasn't much of an opportunity," he told her. "I killed myself."

"Sweetie…"

"The only thing is… it wasn't… it wasn't me…" Once he started talking, he couldn't stop himself from telling her everything he'd seen. Felt. Done. Five hundred years… five hundred years and Jack was still Jack but he was somebody else… and Henry… he could tell by her expression that she at least knew who Henry Fitzroy was, even if perhaps she hadn't met His Grace in the flesh. He supposed it made sense, they were both artists… but through all his babble, she didn't interrupt or try to tell him that any of it was impossible. He supposed he wasn't entirely surprised; she'd seen her fair share of impossible things today, too.

"I can't change any of it," he concluded at last,, disentangling himself from the warmth, albeit comfortlessness, of her embrace. "It wasn't my choice, it wasn't me, it was Jack. He made the choice. He left. I couldn't stop him. I couldn't make him love me…" he shuddered again. The pain of his husband's rejection, even though not a part of this life, tore through him.

"Sweetie, I know Jack. He isn't going to stop loving you."

"You don't understand," five hundred years was a long time… he would forget him…

"Ianto… look, I don't pretend to understand that much about Harkness, but one thing I do know is that once he loves somebody, that's it. They're doomed. He's not gonna stop loving them no matter what."

"Why else would he have left me?"

"Maybe… maybe there's your opportunity," she told him in an earnest, hopeful tone.

"I don't understand."

"Ianto… maybe… maybe it's what you do today, tomorrow, with the rest of this life that makes the difference in that other life. Maybe knowing how much leaving you hurt—maybe _that's_ what he needed to see. The future is mutable, Sweetie. The choices we make, every little decision… we're all always changing the future with every breath we take."

Ianto swallowed but the lump in his throat wouldn't go down. He just barely stopped himself from asking if she wasn't a Time Lord in disguise, she'd sounded so much like the Doctor just then.

"Ianto… Ange…?" Jack's voice cut through the haze of tears… memories the younger man wanted to forget so he could go back to having his life the way it had been before he'd looked into the box. He'd been secure… content. He'd stopped questioning Jack's love so long ago… having his faith shaken…shattered… hurt.

"Sweetheart?" Jack stepped closer, clearly unsure whether or not his presence was really welcome.

Angela smiled up at him. "I was just leaving." She stood up and kissed his cheek. "Don't take so long before visits next time, Captain."

"I'm not sure your husband would appreciate it if we called again too soon."

She flashed him a wry grin. "He's not so bad once you get to know him."

Jack's brows shot up. "Really now?"

She laughed as Ianto groaned.

"Honestly, Cariad…" the young Welshman managed to intone; it was strictly a forced effort.

Still, it gave his husband hope that whatever had happened, things might still be able to go back to what passed for normal in their lives. "Come on, let's get you home," he suggested.

"You arranged a flight…" he asked, bewildered. Jack wasn't that efficient… was he?

"Nope," the Captain confirmed, flipping open his wrist strap before extending his hand in the other's direction.

That time Ianto groaned for real. "You might want to step back," he advised Angela.

"Have a safe…whatever it is you call it."

"Just a short hop," Jack assured her. "Just ah… you know…"

"Mum's the word," she promised.

Ianto took his hand then, let him help him to his feet. The younger man still seemed shaky, but having Ianto's hand in his, wrapping his arm around those slender shoulders… he pressed a kiss to his husband's forehead. "Ready?" Jack asked softly.

The dryness of the other's tone made him smile. "Do I have a choice?" he wanted to know.

He just grinned and pressed the button. A moment later, they were standing in their bedroom. He held Ianto a moment while the younger man got his bearings. He really wasn't used to hopping through space like that.

"Please tell me there's some kind of safety precaution built into that thing to keep you from popping up inside something solid," he said in a baleful tone; they were less than an inch from the bed.

"Who needs safety precautions with a guy like me at the controls?" Jack teased him.

"Right. Next time we take a plane."

Still chuckling, he reached for Ianto's tie…

"I can get myself undressed, Cariad."

"I know," he told him, as he loosened the knot; Ianto had straightened it… straightened himself… after being brought back from the dead. He still didn't want to know how long his Welshman had been gone. All that mattered was that he seemed all right, at least physically.

Ianto stopped protesting and let his husband strip him out of his clothes. He expected… but all Jack did was kiss him, softly on the lips and hand him his bathrobe.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," he promised.

The younger man frowned. "What…"

"Just… relax for a few minutes, ok?" he grabbed the remote from the bedside table and turned on the tele, flipping it to some mindless variety show. "There."

"You expect me to relax watching this?"

"Put on whatever you like," Jack suggested.

He sighed. He sat down on the bed and turned to the news. Two minutes later he was back to watching _Dancing with the Stars_. The news was entirely too depressing. A few moments after that, he heard water running in the tub… he smiled to himself and relaxed a little. At least whatever Jack was up to, it was nothing more nefarious than a bath. He could do with a warm bath…

Ianto didn't realize he'd dozed off until the sound of his own voice pleading with Jack not to leave him roused him from sleep; Jack was standing in their bedroom door, looking pained.

"Sweetheart…?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he lied, trying to shake the nightmare visions from his head… he'd seen Jack dying in front of him… but he knew he wasn't dead, he came back… kissed him. Told him good-bye. Told him loved him… but then he left. If he really loved him, he wouldn't have left! He stifled a sob. Jack was here. He was _right _here… they still had a chance to make things right. _Please… _

"Ianto?" he came to kneel by the bedside.

"I'm all right," he continued to lie.

Jack took his hands up in his. He ran his thumbs over the backs of them, over the titanium band on Ianto's left hand. "I'm still here, Sweetheart. I'm not leaving you."

"It wasn't me you left."

He shifted up onto the bed taking a seat next to him, clearly grateful that whatever his Welshman had seen, he wasn't pushing him away because of it. However, "What do you me, it wasn't you?" he wanted to know.

"I can't explain it, Jack. I just know that…that it was me, but it wasn't. I only know how much I loved you, how long I'd waited for you… what I went through…" he closed his eyes against the memories of a fourteen year old boy being… _You can't rape a Service Provider, Jack… _

_Your body is yours and nobody has the right to it unless you let them… _Jack's voice in the darkness, telling him how special he was.

"You made me feel like the centre of the whole Universe, Cariad," he was only partially aware of the moisture trickling down his cheeks from eyes that were still red-rimmed from earlier. "You told me you wanted me. I believed you."

Jack held his hands tighter still, terrified by the desperation in his husband's tone. "I_ do_ want you," he told him.

"I… I know that, Jack. Here, now, I know that. But… but just please promise me, promise you won't ever leave me."

"Ianto…"

"I need you to mean it, Jack. I need you to really, really mean it."

"I do. I mean it. I won't leave you. You… you make me whole. You're like the piece of a puzzle," he floundered. He'd never been any good at this part. He'd never been able to really tell someone how much they meant to him. He could be glib, coy… but sincerity was harder. So much harder. "You fit into me like no one else ever has."

Ianto almost laughed at that one. He knew Jack hadn't meant that the way it had sounded… so he nodded anyway, accepting at his meaning if not his words. He pulled in close and relished the strength of Jack's arms as he held onto him, making him feel warm. Loved. Special. _Like the centre of the universe… _he inhaled deeply, savouring Jack's scent, fifty-first century pheromones at their very, _very_ best.

He let Jack guide him to the bath, slide the robe off his shoulders; there were lit candles all around the room and a bottle of his favourite wine chilling in an ice bucket on the floor. Jack had even ordered take-away from their favourite Italian restaurant, the place where Ianto had taken him on what they both considered their first date. The place didn't usually deliver, but for Jack, they sometimes made an exception.

He helped him into the bath and poured him a glass of wine before dishing up food for them both.

Ianto hesitated… but then he drank his wine. It was chilled just right… the food was hot. Jack had managed to order his favourite meal… not that it wasn't like him to notice the little things. Jack, for all his faults, was observant and he aimed to please. But in that moment, everything suddenly felt so … normal. _Like anything in my life will ever be normal again,_ he thought more than a little ruefully… but really, he wouldn't trade his life in for the world, especially not when he looked over at his partner, a man with beautiful blue eyes and strong arms that held him so close… so tight. "I love you, Jack."

"I love you too, Sweetheart."


End file.
